News

The first episode of The Land, a program produced in association with A Public Space, explores different interactions between humans and their spaces and places, many of which are mentioned in Issue 19.

This episode features a sound map of Montreal; a visit to Brooklyn's Fulton Mall; the ecology of cities; The Murphy Beds on the road; the Nobel Laureate’s library branch; Jorie Graham and Patrizia Cavalli in sonic translation; and a remembrance of Keith Basso. Read more about this episode here.

November 19, 2013 by Robert Sullivan

Aaron Crippen's translations of Du Fu's poems appeared in Issue 17.

For a poet, there must be no greater pleasure than reading classical Chinese. For a translator, there may be no greater challenge than translating it. For Chinese writing is unique, with its pictographic roots. Fundamentally, its words do not denote sounds, as in alphabetic languages, but objects—such as 日, the sun—or combinations of objects to express ideas—such as 明, the sun and crescent moon together, meaning “bright” or “clear.” Its curves have been straightened and standardized, but in 日 we still recognize what was once a circle, like the sun, with a dot at its center.

November 4, 2013 by Aaron Crippen

The thought of interviewing Tom Drury and Yan Lianke with a set of similar questions occurred to me because in an ideal world, without geological and language barriers, I would have liked to listen to a conversation between the two.

October 1, 2013 by Yiyun Li

This article originally appeared on May 18, 2012.

When I moved into my current flat in Jangpura Extension, New Delhi, my landlady told me that her father-in-law had designed the neighborhood as a settlement for refugees from Pakistan, after Partition. I asked her who and what had been here before the 1950s. Her answer, more than once, was, “Nothing.”

October 1, 2013 by Tania James

This article originally appeared on November 3, 2011.

Recently, I was asked by literary friends in the United States whom we Danes were hoping might win the Nobel Prize in Literature. I had no real idea of any consensus, but as happens every year a large number of male culture scribes over the age of sixty seemed to think it should be given to Bob Dylan. Which always makes me wonder why, if the prize really should go to a troubadour, no one ever talks about Leonard Cohen, but that’s just my own personal aside.

October 1, 2013 by Dorthe Nors

This article originally appeared on October 18, 2011.

A recent review of Salvage the Bones considers the novel in the context of a Salon essay about Modern Steinbecks. These novels, the reviewer suggests, “play into the exoticization of lives unlike those of readers who are inclined to pick up literary fiction.”

Salvage the Bones, like her stories “Cattle Haul” (APS 5) and “Barefoot” (APS 14), is set in rural Mississippi (the state with the greatest percentage of poor people in the nation, and one of the top ten in terms of income inequality). It takes place in the days before Hurricane Katrina. The narrator, Esch, fifteen and pregnant, lives with her three brothers and father in a clearing in the woods they call the Pit.

October 1, 2013

This article originally appeared on September 13, 2011.

821 Sixth Avenue was a hub for jazz musicians from 1954-1965, and many big names in New York found themselves there. The photographer W. Eugene Smith moved into the building in 1957 and eventually wired the place, intent on recording as much of the rehearsals, jam sessions, conversations, and daily life in the loft as possible. The result, though vast (40,000 photographs and 4,500 hours of audio recordings), accounted for a sliver of what was going on culturally, artistically, and politically in the city during the time. Explore a selection of significant spots on the map below.*

October 1, 2013 by Sam Stephenson

This article originally appeared on September 13, 2011.

RK: Eugene Smith, your subject, was known to be an eccentric man. After so many years of researching Smith, what new insights did you learn about him during your time in Japan?

SS: There are a couple of things that come to mind. One is the fondness expressed for Smith, the really moving expressions that people made about him. Several of our interview subjects cried when talking about him.

October 1, 2013 by Sam Stephenson

This article originally appeared on September 12, 2011.

Levon's saxophone from the third floor window reverberates up and down Bergen Street without amplification and the image of him through the window is impressive. The images are projected onto fabric hanging from the ceiling inside Invisible Dog's windows. With the figures moving between the projector and the fabric, it’s not unlike Smith's portrait of 821 Sixth Avenue with the silhouette cutouts. Pedestrians were stopped by curiosity and looked up at the building. A few lingered. A few people across the street closed their windows. When you add MLK giving a speech, Mr. Magoo commercials, Cuban Missile news, the drip of water, the typewriter typing, not to mention imagery...

What is it like to immerse oneself in another person's life?

October 1, 2013 by Sam Stephenson

This article originally appeared on August 18, 2011. In which our favorite writers share precious little bits that didn’t quite fit.

I'm probably not the only writer in the world who, prior to killing his darlings, tortures them. For months, they bounce in and out of a CUTS folder, which works like a self-storage unit, holding things until I can admit they belong in the trash. And not because they are trash, intrinsically, but because the project simply refuses to contain them.

October 1, 2013 by Antoine Wilson

This article originally appeared on June 28, 2011.

During my second year at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I lived at 715 Iowa Avenue, Iowa City, Iowa. In case my friends on the coasts didn’t get it, my address had to say it three times: I’m in the middle.

October 1, 2013 by Leslie Jamison

This article originally appeared on January 28, 2011.

Welcome, people, to the work of Dorthe Nors. I met Dorthe last summer on a residency in Denmark. I’d been told the Danes are the happiest people on earth—they rank highest in the World Database of Happiness [ed: actually, a close second; Costa Rica takes the happiness prize]—and that Danish writers, in particular, are not afflicted with the same malaise, gloom, and despair that seem to beset their peers worldwide. Imagine my delight, then, to find in Dorthe an utterly morbid (and thus entirely winning) sense of humor, and in her bearing the same deadpan intelligence and compassion that motors her work.

October 1, 2013 by Fiona Maazel

This article originally appeared on February 1, 2012.

"This is not a novel. It has too much to explain, to be one of those. But it is not a history either, for it does its explaining in the form of a story; only the story is the story of an idea, first of all, and only afterwards, glimpsed through the chinks of the idea’s fate, the story of the people involved."

October 1, 2013 by Francis Spufford

This article originally appeared on April 29, 2010.

It’s probably safe to say that you’re the only songwriter I’ve ever come across who’s thrown in a quote from Marilyn Hacker. I’m curious what your relationship is to contemporary poetry or writing in general.

October 1, 2013

This article originally appeared on March 30, 2012.

1. Can you describe your daily routine, any rituals or habits?

It’s general consensus that a writer ought to write, or at least put in the hours behind the typewriter, every day.

October 1, 2013 by Miroslav Penkov

This article originally appeared on April 5, 2010.

Right now I'm reading Quincas Borba by Machado de Assis (1839-1908) and so I'll recommend another of his novels, and one of my favorites, Epitaph of a Small Winner. Originally published in 1880, it seems to me a conversation with an eternal present.

October 1, 2013 by Tom Drury

This article originally appeared on April 1, 2010.

Relevant writers have their place, to be sure. But relevance seems to hold a despotic ascendancy these days—everybody wants to be relevant; everybody wants everybody else to be relevant. Relevance is not the only virtue! Irrelevance is also a virtue! The sun is not only a vector of cancer and vitamin D; the sun also makes my Pomeranian twirl. Here is a list of a few of my favorite irrelevant writers:

October 1, 2013 by Amy Leach

This article originally appeared on March 31, 2010.

A taste for topical relevance is cool. There are better places to look than fiction. Newspapers maybe. On TV, pundits speak provocatively on topics of the day. Fiction can handle these topics too, but I suppose people will always argue whether it’s the most appropriate tool and/or for how long the relevant topic will remain relevant.

October 1, 2013 by Tim O’Sullivan

This article originally appeared on March 30, 2010.

Around Halloween, I packed up my mother’s books and brought them home. She was a committed public library patron, so I’d love to know the books she liked enough to buy and keep, what she saved to go back to. But before I unpack boxes, I’m looking to my own shelves to remember some of what’s been essential to me.

October 1, 2013 by Mary-Beth Hughes

This article originally appeared on March 3, 2010.

Hey Ed, I hope you're well. We're finishing up the new issue, and my proofreaders keep querying the space in the fourth stanza of your poem, so I thought better safe than sorry. Attached are your proofs—would you confirm that the space in the line "down from the outer layers inward into—" is supposed to be there? Thanks! Anne

October 1, 2013 by Ed Roberson