January 31, 2005

We Love It When Good Things Happen To Good People

Kudos to the lovely and amazing Jordan Rosenfeld, whose radio program, Word by Word, has just received an NEA grant.

Hearsay

Eliot Weinberger's deeply affecting What I Heard About Iraq is now available at the LRB. Do please take the time to read it. You will not regret it.

Link via Lit Saloon.

Outsider vs. Insider

I found Wendy Shalit's Sunday Times piece about the portrayal of Orthodox Jews in literature interesting but ultimately short-sighted.

Authors who have renounced Orthodox Judaism -- or those who were never really exposed to it to begin with -- have often portrayed deeply observant Jews in an unflattering or ridiculous light. Admittedly, some of this has produced first-rate literature or, at the least, great entertainment, but it has left many people thinking traditional Jews actually live like Tevye in the musical ''Fiddler on the Roof'' or, at the opposite extreme, like the violent, vicious rabbi in Henry Roth's novel ''Call It Sleep.'' Not long ago, I did too.

Shalit argues that often these unsympathetic portrayals come from authors who present themselves as insiders but are, in her view, outsiders. She takes on one of my favorite collections of recent memory, Nathan Englander's For The Relief Of Unbearable Urges, finding fault with Englander's portrayals not because of his fictional take on Orthodox life but for what she sees as dismissive comments he made in interviews.

I readily admit that I don't know nearly enough about Orthodox Judaism to be able to discuss the finer points of shtetl etiquette, but the larger question of who can tell which stories and how has always fascinated me. With a relatively small community that gets very little representation in the mainstream there's an enormous responsibility on the writer to show all aspects of that community's life, an incredibly difficult task indeed.

The problem, however, is that Shalit attacks the author, not the work. There isn't any mention in the article of specific shortcomings in Englander's stories. Isn't the text the ultimate proof? Who cares where Englander went to university? Shouldn't she address whether the book is any good?

In fact, it seems to me that Shalit herself comes to this kind of fiction with her own agenda. One work that finds favor in her eyes, for instance, features "a group of religious American Jews in a settlement on Israel's West Bank." Other people call it Palestine, Wendy.

Link via Sarah.

Pushkin, Pornmaster?

Department of the Tragi-Comic: Some of Pushkin and Lermontov's poetry is being censored in Russia on grounds of "obscenity."

A collection of his poems has been seized by Russian police as part of a crack-down on "obscene" literature. The move has horrified the nation’s literati in a country where serious literature is a serious business and popular with the masses. Only last week, Moscow’s foreign ministry published a book of poems by the nation’s diplomats.

The verses by Pushkin and another giant of Russian writing, Mikhail Lermontov, have been seized by Russian police in the city of Ivanovo, 160 miles north-east of Moscow.

Prosecutors are now studying the volumes, with the help of literary experts, to decide whether they constitute pornography, which is banned, or erotic literature, which is allowed under Russian law. If convicted, the booksellers could be jailed for up to two years.

The move was triggered by a complaint from a nationalist leader who backs Vladimir Putin.

Johnson's Latest

The Seattle Times has a review two of Charles Johnson's latest work, including his story collection, Dr. King's Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories.

Johnson's sense of the role of the individual in society is a thread that runs through both "Dr. King's Refrigerator," his latest collection of short fiction, and "Passing the Three Gates," a compilation of interviews with the author that spans from 1976 to 2003.

The interviews in "Passing the Three Gates" are remarkably consistent in subject matter and literary attitude. For Johnson the questions of literature are the same as in life: Who am I? What is my relationship to the society I live in? How do I balance my own desires with other people's values and experience?

Confession Time, Catamounts

Lizzie Skurnick reviews Sam Lipsyte's Home Land for the NY Times Book Review.

Few activities are as likely to bring on a fit of depressive jealousy as leafing through the back pages of one's alumni magazine. While you molder in a studio apartment, stuck in a dead-end job, your former classmates are founding clinics in Thailand, cranking out best sellers and unveiling major new paintings -- as well as bearing exceptional children. You thought you'd be a success, or at least have a chance to make a decent stab at it while you were still young. Sorry.

Elsewhere, Jim Ruland recently offered his thoughts about Sam Lipsyte's work, including Home Land.

Thanks

Thanks to Randa for taking over on Friday here at Casa Moorishgirl. By the way, if you can help out in any way with the tragedy that she's facing, do please contact her at randajarrar at gmail dot com.

January 27, 2005

It's A Wrap

That's it for me this week. The one and only Randa Jarrar takes over tomorrow and every Friday. Have a great weekend!

Quill Awards Announced

Late last year, a few people pointed out that the Man Booker prize is considered a major event in Britain, the awards carried on TV, and the nominees showered with lots of attention from booksellers and readers, while, in comparison, the Pulitzer and the National Book Awards here in the States generally go by unnoticed by the general public, and with almost no sales boost for the nominated authors.

The solution to this dilemma, American publishers figured, would be to bring some glamour to the awards. But since, after all, these are American publishers we're talking about, the idea quickly turned into this: The Quill Awards. (Quill is the distant, shunned cousin of Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy.) But instead of the writers' work being judged by their peers or by a distingued panel of judges (like the Bookers, say) the Quills will be judged by the American public. Sort of like a People's Choice Awards for books.

The NY Times' Edward Wyatt explains:

Nominations for the award in each category will be made beginning in May by a panel of booksellers, librarians and others. The consumers will be able to vote in the fall for the winners in the categories of best book of the year; rookie of the year, to a first-time author; children's book; graphic novel; literary fiction; suspense, mystery or thriller; science fiction, fantasy or horror; romance; biography or memoir; religion or spirituality; science; health and self improvement; sports; business; and history, current events and politics.

A special committee will help determine winners in several other categories: the book club award, best book-to-film project, best design and a lifetime achievement award.

You can be sure that they'll find a way to nominate J.K. Rowling, so don't even bother tuning in.

Story Prize Winner Announced

The Story Prize, established by Julie Lindsey and former O. Henry series editor Larry Dark, is designed to honor short fiction. The nominees for this first year are Edwidge Danticat (The Dew Breaker), Cathy Day (The Circus in Winter), and Joan Silber (Ideas of Heaven). The prize went to Edwidge Danticat. You can read the announcement in the Seatte PI. And Reuters has a report of the reading itself, at which the prizes were announced.

"I'm very honored," Danticat told the Manhattan audience. She quipped that her companion at the event had just commented, "This is like the Oscars," after actresses Jane Curtin, Kate Burton and Sonia Manzano read stories from the three finalists' works.

"The most precious gift that a writer can get is time," she said, noting that the cash prize, which organizers said was the largest of any annual U.S. book award, would buy "a lot of time, time that one can invest back into one's work."

Danticat is also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award.

Update: Ron "Where Does He Find The Time?" Hogan provides a write-up of the actual ceremony.

Lit Mags in SF

The Bay Guardian runs an overview of literary magazines based in San Francisco, including small mags like Instant City, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and Fourteen Hills as well as local giants like McSweeney's and All-Story. And surprise, surprise, they turn out to be very different in format, sensibility, and choices.

Greer Interview

Powells' Dave Weich interviews Andrew Sean Greer, whose Confessions of Max Tivoli was a favorite here at Casa Moorishgirl. Here's an excerpt:

Dave: I'm assuming it's true that your initial inspiration was the Bob Dylan song ["My Back Pages"]?

Greer: That's not made up, though my friends joke with me; they hear me say it so often at readings that they now assume it is.

I had the idea singing that one line, I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now, and I wrote it down. I didn't come back to it for a couple months because I was in the middle of a book.

It seemed at first like a bad idea, but when I came back to it and realized I had to write another book I was able to see what would be interesting to me about it, which wasn't the science fiction idea of someone aging backwards but ideas related to second chances at love. And I could write about being different inside from the way you're perceived on the outside. Also, I realized I could set it in a historical context, which was the terrifying part, really, not the aging backwards part.

It's often hard for me to remember how it started out. I'm told that early drafts were incredibly different from the book that exists now, but I don't remember. You start to think you just sat down and wrote the book, which I know is not true.

Tsunami, One Month Later

It's been a month. The Indian Ocean tsunami has brought destruction of unbelievable proportions to twelve countries in Asia and Africa, killing at last count as many as 226,000 people.
I think about the dead, the missing, and the survivors, and I wonder what they would say if they could tell their stories. Would the nameless Indian boy comfort his parents? Or would he just cry with them, at the life that was taken before it could be lived?
What would fifteen year old Yeni Sofiana say? The only remnant of her life is a blue Indonesian ID, stuck on an iron fence like a punctuation mark. Is she alive? Or is she dead?
What would Baby 81 say? The poor baby can't even speak yet. He's only four months old. Would he recognize any of the nine families that have now claimed him as their lost child? What will the Sri Lankan judge who must decide his fate face do?

January 26, 2005

Levy Wins Whitbread

Andrea Levy's Small Island has just won the Whitbread Book of the Year, an award that pits Whitbread winners in all categories (fiction, non-fiction, children's) against each other. The Guardian's John Ezard has a report.

[The win] marks a long hoped-for watershed in which, as she said in a recent Guardian article, "some of the bestselling books in this country have come from authors who would once have been seen as 'minority interest' and have now become publishing gold".

When her win was announced late last night, she said, in a reference to the Tory politician Enoch Powell's notorious "rivers of blood" speech in the late 1960s: "Most of all I would like to thank all those people in Britain who work hard to make sure the rivers in this country never run with blood, only with water."

Levy also won the Orange Prize last year.

Sittenfeld Says, "It's Fiction!"

Unlike some of my esteemed friends, I haven't blogged about the hoopla surrounding Curtis Sittenfeld and whether or not her novel is a thinly disguised roman a clef. Until now. Today's NY Times has an article about Sittenfeld, in which she essentially expresses surprise that people have been asking whether, like her character, she gave a blow job to her high school crush.

While Ms. Sittenfeld used a recent interview here to talk about the novel and all the ways she is not Lee, her publisher's publicity machine is complicit in the tease. "Prep" press material includes Ms. Sittenfeld's Groton School class photograph, a shot of the cute boy who was her high school crush and her senior yearbook quote and list of activities.

"In a way it's flattering that it seems so real," Ms. Sittenfeld said, adding that at Groton she was less an outsider than is Lee at the fictional Ault School, with more friends and more of an identity through writing. "But is it so easy to believe that I have no imagination and I can't invent dialogue or those scenarios?"

It might be easier to believe Ms. Sittenfeld if she hadn't supplied her publicist with the pictures that are at the heart of the question. Taking part in a publicity stunt could be easily forgiven, but don't turn around and act surprised if people take you up on it.

Unless, of course, this denial, too, is part of the stunt. You know: Private information about the author is sent to members of the press; they dutifully report it and ask questions about the author; the author, in turn, huffs that it's a work of fiction; and it all ends up getting a few thousand more copies sold.

At any rate, I doubt Sittenfeld is that uncomfortable with the attention. And with all the ink being spilled on whether or not those b-js were real, she's bound to have a following.

Update A former classmate of Sittenfeld's at Groton emails in to advise us that the "fiction question" is "colossal bullshit." Says the classmate:

"Frankly, almost every word of that novel is fact. Curtis wasn't on scholarship, she's half Jewish not Italian, and she never hooked up with anyone at Groton. Other than that, the thing is basically her diary. The haircuts, the roommate, the teachers...all true. Oh, there's one other difference I forgot--Curtis wasn't shunned for blabbing to a reporter--she was shunned for sending an article to the Washington Post about how sexist Groton was.
Anyway, I don't care if she publishes a memoir as fiction, but then to complain about people thinking it's true is ridiculous."

Oscar Noms

Nominations for the Academy Awards were announced yesterday. I was happy to see that among the nominated scripts in the Adapted Screenplay category was Sideways--a film I loved, but which some of my friends really hated. Mostly though, the list of nominees reminded me that I need to get out more. I haven't yet seen Ray or Hotel Rwanda or Million Dollar Baby or Closer or even Kinsey, which has been out so long I doubt it's even playing anymore.

Udwan Obit

The Guardian has an obit of Syrian poet and playwright Mamdouh Udwan.

Mamdouh's work combines humour and tragedy. He was ferocious in his denunciation of corruption and despotism. He broke away from stereotyping Jews. In My Enemies they laugh and weep rather than threaten and fight. In this historical novel there is always a message for the present. His language was simple and direct and he was an enemy of official cant, "cruel dreams coupled with cruel bread", as he put it in one of his poems. His plays present the dilemmas of contemporary citizens. One play, The Mask, has been performed in English, and explores the situation of a 30-something Damascus career girl living alone.

Baghdad Bookshop

Here's an interesting piece by AP reporter Hamza Hemdawi about Iqra', a small Baghdad bookshop trying to do business in the midst of war.

The Baghdad of 2005 throws up an incongruous scene - American Humvees on the streets, one or two bombings a day, gunfire echoing in the distance, and election posters plastered on the walls promising anything from the departure of the Americans to better security and economic prosperity.

Yet in Iqra'a, Arabic for "read," the usual bookish atmosphere prevailed. The shelves were stacked with Shakespeare, Hemingway and Omar Khayyam. News in Arabic from the BBC filled the air as students hunted for bargains, often a book discarded by U.S. troops and sold to Iqra'a by base cleaners who haul them in by the box.

On sale was "Islam for Dummies," with the name of its former owner, a Capt. Bossolo, scribbled on it.

Islam for Dummies in the soldiers' trashbins. That's got to be a metaphor for something.

"Tsunami Song"

Apparently, morning radio DJs are in a race to see who's most racist, insensitive, and generally revolting. After the infamous Star & Buc prank call, a new low has been reached with the Miss Jones show's "Tsunami Song," which aired on New York's Hot 97. You can listen to the clip here. The lyrics are sung to the tune of "We Are The World," and deride the victims of the tsunami using racial epithets. But the media seemed to pick up on the story more quickly than before, with the Daily News, Newsday, and many others reporting about it. Hot 97 is a part of Emmis Broadcasting.

Thanks to reader Tito the tip. For more info, visit Hiphop blog.

January 25, 2005

Ron Charles Recommends

"I've waited and waited for Marc Estrin's Insect Dreams to become a cult classic on college campuses, but it hasn't happened - yet," Charles says. "In this touching, weirdly funny historical novel, poor Gregor - the human-cockroach from Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis - witnesses the great developments and tragedies of the first half of the 20th century. After escaping the Nazis, he scurries from the Scopes trial to Los Alamos, from the Japanese internment camps to the White House. Everywhere, he's omnivorously attentive, his antennae sensitive to the pheromones of beauty and cruelty passing around him. It's the kind of book from which one wakes clutching surreal scenes, desperate to tell others, delighted and baffled and horrified."

Ron Charles is the book editor for the Christian Science Monitor and a board member of the National Book Critics Circle.

If you'd like to recommend an underappreciated book for this series, please send mail to llalami at yahoo dot com.

"Authentic" Fiction

Nilanjana Roy's latest column for the Business Standard is about that word that strikes fear in any expat author, or any author writing about the immigrant experience: authenticity. More specifically, Roy looks at Indian fiction that is written from within and without the continent and the resulting question that seems to be on readers' minds.

The problem lies elsewhere, with the books about India and by writers of Indian origin that come to us on an ocean of advance publicity, gilt-edged, flagged for our consideration, endorsed by the Western world, stamped with the approval of publishing houses we should be able to trust, foreign editors whose names are legendary, authors who are living shrines.

For far too long, the debate over the merits of "phoren" versus "desi" books has been hijacked by an obsession with authenticity. Is Monica Ali's Brick Lane the Real Thing, or a simulacra? Are Rupa Bajwa's shop assistants true to life? How much of Bengali culture can an NRI like Jhumpa Lahiri truly understand? Has Naipaul really understood the neo-revolutionaries with whom he explored India's villages? Is Manil Suri's Vishnu authentic, is Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi's sense of history authentic, is Samina Ali's Hyderabad authentic, is Vikas Swarup's beggar-turned-quiz contestant authentic?

The only possible answers to these questions are the ones that writers give when pressed: a writer is free to imagine his or her version of reality.

What is the authentic India anyway-the city, the village, the slums, the farmhouses? And what part of the phrase "work of fiction" do you not understand?

And, she concludes (rightly, I think) that the only question that should be asked is: Are the books any good?

Arabs on Film

Blogging Sundance is a cool little blog with lots of on-site coverage of the festival. A couple of days ago, for instance, there was an item about filmmaker Jacqueline Salloum who's there to present her short film, Planet of the Arabs, which is based on the (must-read) book by Jack Shaheen--Reel Bad Arabs.

For those who may not have noticed, the latest example of cliche-ridden portrayals of Middle-Eastern people comes courtesy of TV series 24, except now the bad Muslims happen to be an entire family (Mom, Dad, and Kiddo terrorists). Just in case you were wondering whether you should trust the people next door, 24 gives you the answer.

On the other hand, the writers of the ABC drama Lost managed to craft a credible, complex Arab character (played by British-Asian actor Naveen Andrews) that keeps me tuning in every Wednesday. But for every Sayid in Lost there's a hundred other characters like the Arazes in 24. I guess that means we have to go to a deserted island instead of a suburb to find some good A-rabs.

MacArthur: Too Much, Too Late?

Crain's, a Chicago-area business (!) newspaper, recently conducted a survey of the last 25 years of the MacArthur Genius grants. (Use bugmenot.com for a login and password.) The grants provide a stipend of $500,000, paid out in equal installments over five years, and to be used in any way the recipient wishes. In the article, Mark Sheffler concludes that

[M]ost of the 31 writers chosen since 1981 as MacArthur Fellows had already hit their artistic peak.

The piece comes with a handy photo-montage of several writers, with captions that accuse their latest works--written after having received the grants--of being sub-par. Quality was judged by looking at major awards these artists received--Pulitzer, National Book Award, etc.

Is there a problem here? Maybe. But the approach is so flawed that the results given in the article are meaningless. For one thing, most of the authors are still alive, and therefore still likely to produce what could be their very best work. In addition, writers are selected at very different ages to receive the award, and so the time span Sheffler is looking at is not uniform across all writers. Lastly, are prizes really the best indicator of whether a book is good? Take the recent brouhaha over the NBA and all the complaints about how Philip Roth was robbed. Prizes are nice, but they're inherently subjective, just like these awards.

Still, this doesn't mean that the article doesn't bring up a good point. I've always been mystified by the selection process for the MacArthurs and the lack of oversight after the selection, so it was really amusing to read this quote, from the director of the MacArthur Fellows program.

Mr. Socolow disagrees: "I think the program works fantastically. Can I measure it in quantifiable terms? No."

Must be nice to work for somebody who doesn't do performance reviews.

Thanks to Amy H. for the link.

NBCC Award Nominees

The nominees for the National Book Critics Circle award were announced last weekend in New York. In fiction, the finalists are:

Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breaker

Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

Pretty good list, I think. Who do you think will win? Drop me a line.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

January 24, 2005

TMN Tournament of Books

I don't know how I managed to miss this (blame it on the mental fog induced by constant revisions): Mark Sarvas (of TEV), Jessa Crispin (of Bookslut) and Maud Newton (of ... Maudnewton) are all part of the judging panel for the first annual Tournament of Books over at The Morning News. The idea behind the tournament is to take 16 of the most celebrated books of 2004 and pit them against one another in an NCAA-style "Battle Royale of literary excellence."

posted by Laila Lalami at 01:44 PM

What I'd Like To Know Is Where Does He Find The Time?

Not content with running one of the best lit blogs around, Ron has now started a book review blog for Arts Journal, titled (drum roll, please): Beatrix.

posted by Laila Lalami at 01:39 PM

Birnbaum & de Bernieres

Robert Birnbaum interviews the jovial-looking Louis de Bernieres for The Morning News. I haven't read Birds Without Wings yet, but if you have, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

posted by Laila Lalami at 01:09 PM

Readings Around Town

Portland-based writer Marc Acito talks about writing with the Oregon Writers' Colony tonight at 7 pm at Powell's. Tomorrow, New Yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell reads from his much-reviewed new book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking at Powell's, while, across town, Laurie Lynn Drummond reads from her debut collection, Anything You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Popular Hairstyles

Here's a nice NPR piece about Joe Meno's Hairstyles of the Damned, which they say has sold 20,000 copies, with virtually no major reviews or marketing.

Meno's first novel, How the Hula Girl Sings, was published by St. Martin's Press. Hairstyles of the Damned started off at a significantly less well known publisher with only 4,000 copies to start. Meno has some choice words for "conservative" publishers such as Judith Regan, warning against the reluctance to publish riskier material. Hairstyles, despite its small initial printing, still gained a following among readers who know something about feeling like an outcast and finding solace in punk music.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

On Procrastination

I'm (supposed to be) in full revision mode for The Things That Death Will Buy, so this article about procrastination seemed particularly a propos.

Of all the afflictions of the old school, surely the most entrenched and significant was procrastination. Anyone can procrastinate, of course - anyone with a tendency to perfectionism and a horror of imagined drudgery - but writers have had a special relationship with it. (...) Procrastinators are particularly tortured by people who don't delay. Scott Fitzgerald, in Paris in the 1920s, had an endlessly hard time getting down to work, as his friend and rival Hemingway described: "He was always trying to work. Each day he would try and fail. He laid the failure to Paris, the town best organised for a writer to write in that there is." While Fitzgerald was pacing from brasserie to brasserie, he knew all too well that Hemingway was scribbling away in his room on the Rue Cardinal Lemoine. He'd do anything to distract him, so the story goes, shouting up at his window and asking how the work was going, trying to lure him down for drinks.

Link via Sarah.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Al-Qaeda Reader Ignites Controversy

Everyone in New York publishing seems to have their knickers in a twist over the Al-Qaeda Reader, an anthology of writings by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and which will be translated by Raymond Ibrahim at the Library of Congress. The furor stems from the appearance that Doubleday would stand to make money off of 9/11, though that particular argument was dismissed when the publisher (finally) announced that it would donate profits to charity. Still, some see the move as "propaganda" for Al-Qaeda, these presumably being the same people who bitch and moan about censorship in Arab countries.

I'm against censorship of any kind--whether it's a book by Salman Rushdie or a memoir by Shirin Ebadi or this. It seems to me you can't possibly fight an ideology if you don't understand what it means, and until Al-Qaeda's hateful rhetoric is documented, we'll just have to take whatever pundits or politicians tell us rather than see it for ourselves. Fearing the publication of the book is, I think, indicative of a certain defensiveness, as if your own arguments against it might not be strong enough. And that's just silly.

Related: Osama, Call Your Agent! at Slate.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Torture, Truth, and Consequences

Andrew Sullivan reviews two books about torture for the NY Times: Steven Strasser's The Abu Ghraib Investigations and Mark Danner's Torture and Truth. Here's the money quote:

I'm not saying that those who unwittingly made this torture possible are as guilty as those who inflicted it. I am saying that when the results are this horrifying, it's worth a thorough reassessment of rhetoric and war methods. Perhaps the saddest evidence of our communal denial in this respect was the election campaign. The fact that American soldiers were guilty of torturing inmates to death barely came up. It went unmentioned in every one of the three presidential debates. John F. Kerry, the ''heroic'' protester of Vietnam, ducked the issue out of what? Fear? Ignorance? Or a belief that the American public ultimately did not care, that the consequences of seeming to criticize the conduct of troops would be more of an electoral liability than holding a president accountable for enabling the torture of innocents? I fear it was the last of these. Worse, I fear he may have been right.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

January 20, 2005

It's A Wrap

That's it for me this week. The one and only Randa Jarrar takes over tomorrow and every Friday. Have a great weekend and see you on Monday.

posted by Laila Lalami at 05:59 PM

Something To Read To Ease The Pain Of Inauguration

If you do not believe that George W. Bush stole the 2000 election; that the Iraq war was a monumental mistake; that gay people are second-class citizens in this country; that the current administation is waging a war against the poor; that serious voter intimidation and outright fraud occurred yet again in 2004; stop reading. This book is not for you.

What We Do Now is clear about its audience: The half of the country who thinks that an election should be decided by voters, not by the judicial system or partisan secretaries of state; that we should not attack people unless we are attacked; that the rich should pay their fair share of taxes; and that the Democrats fucked up again in 2004. It's a book for those who feel a despair of nearly unspeakable proportions, even when they hide behind brave faces.

There are essays, thoughts, recriminations, recommendations, and suggestions by Lewis Lapham, Percival Everett, Steve Almond, Maud Newton, Greg Palast, Howard Dean, George Saunders and many others. I've been dragging my copy to the gym, the coffee shop, the office, for the last few days, as an antidote to the televised coronation of Bush. You might like to do the same.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:30 PM

The World Is Falling (Again)

Gays, Mormons and Muslims have one thing in common: They want to take over the world, apparently:

Four years ago, Wagner set out to research six groups and their missiological strategies for growth: the Assemblies of God denomination, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims and the Southern Baptist Convention. Further into his research, he discovered that only three of the six had an overall mega-strategy of growth -- homosexuals, Mormons and Muslims.

Read about it here.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:15 PM

AA Gathering Info on Flyers' Friends?

Sci-Fi writer Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing) shares a bizarre incident that happened to him on his recent flight from Gatwick to Dallas.

The security officer then handed me a blank piece of paper and said, "Please write down the names and addresses of everyone you're staying with in the USA."

I actually began to write this out when I was brought up short. "Wait a second -- since when does AA compile a written dossier on the names and addresses of my friends? Why are you asking me this? Do you have a privacy policy and a data-retention policy I can inspect prior to this?"

The security officer told me that this was a Transport Security Agency (TSA) regulation. I asked for the name or number of the regulation, its text, and the details of the data-retention and privacy practices in place at AA UK. The security officer wasn't able to answer my questions, and she went to get her supervisor.

Link via Ron.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:10 PM

E-Panel With Nine Lit Mag Editors

Dan Wickett interviews editors, managing editors and founders of literary magazines for his latest e-panel: Michelle Herman of The Journal, Dave Koch, Josh Koch and Josh Melrod of Land Grant College Review, Kyle Minor of The Frostproof Review, Hannah Tinti of One Story, Kim Dana Kupperman and Peter Stitt of The Gettysburg Review, Mike Steinberg of Fourth Genre, R.T. Smith of Shenandoah, and Felicia Sullivan of Small Spiral Notebook. Find out how the magazines started, how they are funded, what kind of works they publish.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

The Last Taboo?

Last month, an Asian-British playwright went into hiding after receiving death threats from members in the Sikh community, some of who were offended by the play she had just put out. Late last year, a Dutch filmmaker was killed by a Muslim fanatic who considered his work blasphemous. There were also some death threats against BBC executives for airing an opera that offended Christians.

Power struggles between traditional and modern currents inside different faiths have served to raise the religious stakes across the board. Today, religion in Europe is more intertwined with politics than in recent memory. And perhaps for this very reason, some artists believe it again worthy of attention.

Alan Riding wonders if religion is against taboo in art, and what this might mean for artists.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Dedication: A Definition

Ron reports that Elliot Pearlman (Seven Types of Ambiguity) broke his arm while running through an airport trying to catch a flight. A doctor who happened by made him a makeshift sling out of her scarf, and so Pearlman got on the plane to make a reading at Housing Works in Manhattan. Sheesh.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Paris Review Editor Exits

Brigid Hughes, who replaced George Plimpton as editor of the Paris Review will leave the magazine in March, when her contract expires. No reason was given for the change, the NY Times' Edward Wyatt says.

"You can't replace a George Plimpton," Mr. Guinzburg added. "He is not just indispensable, he is irreplaceable."
Nevertheless, when asked what he would say the board was looking for in a new editor, he replied, "I wouldn't say.'' Then, after a pause, he said, "George Plimpton."

Link via The Angry Anthropologist.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

January 19, 2005

Birnbaum & Banks

I'm running out the door, but wanted to add one more link this morning: The inimitable Robert Birnbaum interviews Russell Banks for Identity Theory, and they talk about writing, the culture wars, City of God, and the 2004 election, among other things. I'll be reading it more closely when I get back.

posted by Laila Lalami at 07:36 AM

Naisse Gets Award

Syrian activist Aktham Naisse has won the Martin Ennals Award for his "long-standing struggle for the defence of human rights, at the risk of his own health and life."

Thanks to Michael for the link.

posted by Laila Lalami at 07:31 AM

Mandelbaum Profile

The Baltimore Sun runs a profile of Paul Mandelbaum, author of the new story collection Garrett-in-Wedlock. The book caught my eye not just because I've taken writing classes with Paul, but because of its serious subject matter, couched in a hilarious set-up.

Really, it could happen to anyone.

You marry and divorce. You remarry and your wife has two children from two former spouses. Ex-spouse No. 1 is dying from a form of mad cow disease, and he comes to live with you - even getting the master bedroom. Ex-spouse No. 2 is a bigamist who also makes himself right at home in your life. Oh, and you and your wife are under the care of a mysterious fertility doctor.

Related: Paul also took part in Moorishgirl's underappreciated books series last month.

posted by Laila Lalami at 07:21 AM

Lapcharoensap Interview

Dan Wickett of emergingwriters.net interviews Rattawut Lapcharoensap, whose new collection, Sightseeing, was published earlier this month. Here's a snippet:

Dan: Your descriptions of Thailand in the stories give the juxtaposition of living in what others consider an exotic retreat. Was this something you were specifically trying to show?

A: Indeed it was; I'm glad that it came across as such. I'd always found it peculiar, personally, that the place where I lived--Bangkok--seemed a kind of paradise to others, since it hardly seemed a paradise to me or to those around me. Bangkok was simply the setting of our daily struggles and our daily joys. It was where we *lived* and, as such, perfectly mundane. But here were these people voluntarily arriving in Thailand to RELAX, and here, too, was an entire economic infrastructure reliant upon their presence and the money in their wallets. For better or for worse, it's increasingly difficult these days to go around Thailand without being reminded of the tourism industry. I think that a strange, albeit very modern, situation often arises out of this: these emblems of leisure--the modern traveler, vacationer--must rub shoulders on a daily basis with an entirely different social class, those who must toil for their pleasure. It makes for peculiar, though at times heartbreaking, situations. Jamaica Kincaid has written quite beautifully about this in "A Small Place," her essay on Antigua's tourism industry.

It was particularly interesting to read Lapcharoensap's thoughts about this, considering the review the NY Times gave of his work. Since I write about Morocco, many people come to my work expecting descriptions of rugs or souks or harems, but of course, that's not what stands out to me. I've written about this before on this blog, so I won't belabor the point here, but all I'll say is that, to me, Morocco isn't some exotic locale that I'm supposed to be highlighting for the reader. It's just part of who I am.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Advance Angst

Bookangst 101 continues to provide the kinds of discussions you'd never see anywhere else. See, for instance, this post about that most taboo of topics: advances.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

Schami Novel

It's not every day that a novel by a Syrian writer actually gets a deal here in the States, so it was a special pleasure to read the news on Publishers' Marketplace today:

Rafik Schami's THE DARK SIDE OF LOVE, set in Damascus and spanning a century of Syrian history, an epic love story featuring two protagonists from rival clans that are engaged in a merciless blood feud, to Daniel Slager at Harcourt, in a nice deal, by Jennifer Lyons at Writers House, working in conjunction with Friederike Barakat at Carl Hanser Verlag (world English).

The novel is already a bestseller in Germany.

posted by Laila Lalami at 12:00 AM

CLA Studios Open

Reuters reports that producer Dino De Laurentiis has opened CLA Studios, a huge new film studio in Ouarzazate, in the south of Morocco. The piece glosses over the fact that DeLaurentiis' partner in the project is Moroccan producer Said Alj (the A in CLA) but I suppose that's not surprising. Among the movies that will be made at CLA is Baz Luhrman's Alexander, with Leonardo diCaprio as the Macedonian leader.

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