The Icelandic novelist, poet and Björk collaborator is a surrealist for our time. Read more
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Category: Authors
France celebrates 400 years of Molière, the nation’s defining playwright
France launches Saturday a year of events to mark the 400th anniversary of Moliere, the nation’s most illustrious and ever popular master of the stage and satire. Read more
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Ida B. Wells, Black journalist and suffragist, honored with new Barbie doll
Black American journalist, suffragist and anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells will have her likeness transformed into a Barbie doll to honor her historic achievements. Read more
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Nine decades later, W.E.B. Du Bois’s work faces familiar criticisms
“Black Reconstruction,” published against a backdrop of violence and segregation, met with a vitriolic reception. White writers leveled sharp-tongued critiques. Black journalists assessed the work favorably but with reservations. Despite the early criticism, over time “Black Reconstruction” came to be recognized as a towering analysis of American culture and an important work of history. Nonetheless, the book’s contribution to the understanding of American racism is, nearly 90 years after its publication, still subject to stale objections that echo those heard when it first hit bookstore shelves. Read more
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Festival celebrating Eatonville author Zora Neale Hurston kicks off
The 33rd ZORA! Festival, which runs through the month of January, is back to honor Zora Neale Hurston. Read more
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The Novelist Who Saw Middle America as It Really Was
Sinclair Lewis captured the narrow-mindedness and conformity of middle-class America in the first half of the 20th century. On the 100th anniversary of his best-selling novel “Babbitt,” Robert Gottlieb revisits Lewis’s life and career. Read more
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Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. Connell
At last, in “Literary Alchemist: The Writing Life of Evan S. Connell,” journalist, biographer and Kansas City resident Steve Paul has constructed a meticulous, intriguing, and long-overdue appraisal of a talent deserving of wider attention. Read more
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Novelist Bernardine Evaristo to be president of Royal Society of Literature
Bernardine Evaristo is to be the next president of the Royal Society of Literature, becoming the first writer of colour to hold the position. Read more
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‘True Grit’ is a modern classic, but it’s not the only great work by Charles Portis
Portis, who died in 2020, is best known for “True Grit,” the modern classic about 14-year-old Mattie Ross, who enlists a grizzled, one-eyed U.S. Marshal named Rooster Cogburn to help her hunt down her father’s murderer. Read more
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Man exonerated in 1981 rape of author Alice Sebold after film project finds discrepancies
A rape conviction at the center of a memoir by award-winning author Alice Sebold has been overturned because of what authorities determined were serious flaws with the 1982 prosecution and concerns the wrong man had been sent to jail. Read more
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