Jean-Baptiste Andrea received the Goncourt Prize, France’s most prestigious literary award, on Tuesday for his novel “Watching Over Her.” The novel, published by L’Iconoclaste, is a sprawling fresco that follows Michelangelo “Mimo” Vitaliani, a dwarf and skilled sculptor who at the end of his life is said to be “watching over” his masterpiece, a mysteriously powerful sculpture. Read more
Steinbeck’s Vintage Sardine Boat Makes its Modern Debut
Darwin had the Beagle, Hemingway the Pilar, and for writer John Steinbeck and biologist Ed Ricketts, there was the Western Flyer, hallowed ground for their six-week journey in the spring of 1940 to the Sea of Cortez. Their sojourn was brief, but their observations of marine life and ruminations on human life — portrayed in Steinbeck’s “The Log from the Sea of Cortez” — have reached across generations, inspiring literary and scientific devotees whose affection for the boat sees value far beyond any modern practicality. Read more
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Silvia Garcia-Moreno on Dracula’s Depictions and Descendants
Vampires! Vampires! Vampires! Read more
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The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island
Her writing was admired by Hemingway. Then her books — and body — disappeared. Read more
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On the Horror Fiction Renaissance
As authors across the world explore their darkest fears, horror fiction is evolving to offer a chilling reflection of our times. Read more
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Movie Adaptation of ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett is Getting Good Reviews
Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who’s fed up with the establishment profiting from “Black” entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, Monk uses a pen name to write an outlandish “Black” book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain. Watch trailer
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Chaucer Goes Digital as British Library Makes Works Available Online
The entire collection of Geoffrey Chaucer’s works held by the British Library is being made available in digital format after the completion of a two and a half year project to upload 25,000 images of the often elaborately illustrated medieval manuscripts. Read more
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Literature Machines
The Italian novelist Italo Calvino was unusually optimistic about the invention of a “literature machine.” In his 1967 essay “Cybernetics and Ghosts,” he imagines a computer that would be “capable of conceiving and composing poems and novels,” bringing to the page what humans “are accustomed to consider as the most jealously guarded attributes in our psychological life.” For him, literature is simply “a combinatorial game that pursues the possibilities implicit in its own material, independent of the personality” of the writer. When read today, Calvino’s predictions—“provocative and even profane” at the time, as he admitted—seem eerily prescient. Read more
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Winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards Announced
This weekend, the winners of the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book were announced at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon). The ceremony was held October 21st at the Chengdu Science Fiction Museum in Chengdu, China. Read more
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Since the War, Events About Palestinian Culture Have Been Called Off
Some fear that the raft of cancellations at this moment of war and tragedy is limiting opportunities to foster dialogue and greater understanding. Read more
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