Nobel Prize in Literature continues to court controversy
After a year in which it tried to put a series of controversies behind it, the Nobel committee for literature finds itself the subject of new protests.
Short Story Advent Calendar, Days 2 & 3: Enrique Vila-Matas and Anthony Doerr
Days 2 and 3 of the 2019 Short Story Advent Calendar highlight the stylistic range on display.
Hingston and Olsen’s Short Story Advent Calendar celebrates five years
Editor Michael Hingston and designer Natalie Olsen celebrate five years of producing the Short Story Advent Calendar.
Family matters: Ashleigh Young on seeing, place, and her debut essay collection
Ashleigh Young draws on her own confusion, family history, and an idiosyncratic sensibility in her book of essays.
A small derangement of consciousness: the challenging fiction of Jung Young Moon
Jung Young Moon’s novel eschews traditional notions of plot, character, and conflict in favour of a digressive dreamscape.
Busting borders: the gut-punch fiction of Don Winslow
The American crime writer Don Winslow opened the 2019 Toronto International Festival of authors with an insightful conversation about writing, genre, and the U.S. war on drugs.
Brief encounters: “The Body-Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1884 chiller “The Body-Snatcher” is a tale of supernatural horror with moral overtones.
Anatomy of melancholy: Kevin Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier
Kevin Barry’s third novel features two career criminals waiting at a seedy Spanish port for the arrival of the estranged daughter of one of them.
Harold Bloom, proponent of the literary sublime, dies at age 89
Harold Bloom antagonized academics and cultural theorists, but remained a staunch advocate of transcendence through literature.
On regarding the lives of others: Benjamin Moser’s biography of Susan Sontag
Benjamin Moser’s biography of Susan Sontag presents its subject as a mass of contradictions.