A Momentary Taste of Being

A review of The Fish Can Sing

Palace of Desire reviewed

The Feast of the Goat reviewed

The Silent Cry reviewed

"The Laureate's Curse"

2012: Liu Xiaobo's Writings to be translated. via Books Inq.

Imre Kertesz's Fateless considered The book is also translated as Fatelessness, and the fact that there have been two translations over a very short time speak, I think, to the merits of this very fine book.  Kertesz won the Nobel Prize a few years back and seems to have sunk largely into that slough of the forgotten--ironic considering that one of his books is about that precisely.  If you get a chance, you should take up Fateless/Fatelessness

"In Praise of Reading and Fiction"

An Open Letter on Liu Xiaobo I'm nearly reluctant to publish this because every time I mention Liu Xiaobo, I get various partisans crawling out of the woodwork to instruct me on how Liu Xiaobo is legitimately a guest of the Chinese Government and I have no right to say anything at all about it because I do not live in China.  Fortunately, in the United States, we have every right to speak in total ignorance and show the world how really unwise we are--and so I do, because I admire Liu Xiaobo's passionate and principled fight for freedom in China and by example, in the world.

On Vargas Llosa's winning of the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize Winner--Mario Vargas Llosa I do tire of hearing this award called "safe" and "uncontroversial" as though these qualities make for some good award.  I suppose it isn't intended, but it seems almost a cheapening of the honor--if it is safe, it is safe because the work is superb.  Period.  But then, this is the problem with reading-into rather than accepting face value--I get annoyed, and the authors of the pieces had no intention of taking away any of the well deserved honor. ;And I can say that I've enjoyed more Vargas Llosa than I have Herta Müller, try as I might.

Mario Vargas Llosa profiled

Why Ngugi wa Thiong'o should have won the Nobel Prize But 50 years after that momentous conference, the reasons for inviting the Kenyan author to accompany at least one of his Nigerian colleagues into the Nobel hall of fame are compelling. Soyinka and Ngugi both lived through colonialism as children, were shaped by the promise of decolonisation, protested their subsequent political disillusionment and paid dearly for their writing in prison. Both were deeply committed to public engagement through performances of their plays; both have written movingly about the consequences of their beliefs. But what separates Ngugi from his Nobel predecessor is his brave and polemical decision to write in his first language, Gikuyu. Ngugi renounced writing in English in July 1977 at the Nairobi launch of Petals of Blood, saying that he wished to express himself in a language that his mother and ordinary people could understand. The announcement didn't come out of the bl...

Like the white smoke from the Vatican flue, there's something satisfying in this ritual performance.

From the Swedish Article referenced below (I was wrong about babelfish) Michael Dirda, literary critic, Washington Post, United States   "I would choose angloirländaren William Trevor, the greatest living short story bar.   Also, the regular American candidates Philip Roth, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Joyce Carol Oates would be good choices, as well as children's author Maurice Sendak. O ther tips are Dutchman Cees Nooteboom, Australian Les Murray and Canadian Alice Munro.   Unfortunately, the contemporary writers that I admire most - such as James Salter, Russell Hoban, Gene Wolfe and John Crowley are not sufficiently widespread. The reason I note this is to remark upon what really fine taste Mr. Dirda displays in his list of most-admired contemporary writers.  It's one of the things I like most about Dirda as a critic--he doesn't toe any genre lines.  And there are at least two on this list that fall into my own list of contemporary greats...

Nobel Prize Winner And for those who can read Swedish (I'm not sure even BabelFish covers Swedish) comment from writers and critics around the world.

Nobel Prize Winner Mario Vargas Llosa Should McCarthy (Cormac) have won?

University Diaries looks at one poem by Tomas Tranströmer. What's nice about UD is that the blogkeeper offers insights and readings of the work she considers.  These are nice helps for an approach to poetry--guidelines not constraints.

Neck and neck--Kenya and Cormac

I'm afraid I just can't get enough of the speculation--especially with Cormac McCarthy at 8/1.