Michael Barron
@_michaelbarron
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writer / editor | formerly @NewDirections @MelvilleHouse | words in places
New York
Joined January 2019
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Walter Benjamin’s seaside grave and memorial in Portbou, Spain. The quote on the partition that prevents you from walking into the water reads: “It is more difficult to honor the anonymous than the renowned. Historical construction is devoted to the memory of the anonymous.”
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Cool, but the story of why Bolaño’s books are no longer with an indie like New Directions isn’t pretty.
Beyond ecstatic to be bringing Roberto Bolaño to Vintage Classics in 2024
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The library at the place we’ll be staying for the next two months in Barcelona. (Can you spot Pessoa?)
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Finished.
IMO: One of the best novels from any place or language and a phenomenal year-long diaristic reading experience. Big thanks to its translator Damion Searls who chatted with me as I progressed. Happy to do the same for others. The book begins on Aug 21—tomorrow. Read it!
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It's my birthday today, and to mark the occasion, I broke a long absence from book criticism to review the
@LibraryAmerica
volumes of Don Delillo's 80s and 90s novels for
@The_Rumpus
(which has a new website):
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Looking forward to settling into my new role as
@The_Rumpus
’s prose Books Review editor (fiction + non). Email in bio. Pitch me!
Rumpus team update: Thank you,
Chelsea Leu (
@ChelseaLeu
), prose Books Reviews Editor for 4(!) years of incredible work & welcome to our new prose Books Review Editor Michael Barron (
@_michaelbarron
)!
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Drove by Clarice Lispector’s former home in Chevy Chase.
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We stop obsessing over the social media viralty of American literary debutants. We look at the other market for literary debuts - first appearances in English translation - on how to promote merit over buzz. We put a moratorium on words like "splashy." We read the critics again.
Seems inevitable that as literary communities disappear all that's left is the whims of social media virality. Not that I know how you fix that...
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Finished. Scalp-crinkling American literature is back.
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RIP to Paul Auster whose novel, 4 3 2 1, features a protagonist who becomes a Columbia student reporter covering the campus protests of '68.
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This
@nyrbclassics
original collects a previously unpublished novel and shorter stories by the great Susan Taubes - favorably compared to Ingeborg Bachmann, Elizabeth Hardwick, and Renata Adler - as noted by
@francescawade
in her great introduction.
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Thrilled for translator Damion Searls - long laboring, long astonishing. It’s about time he had a win like this.
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Happy birthday to the Salvadoran poet and activist Roque Dalton. As a personal project, I’ve been translating his sole novel, an epic postmodern work and a major influence on Roberto Bolaño, who would borrow from its template and themes for The Savage Detectives. Look him up.
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RIP to Cormac McCarthy. You were the worthy heir to Faulkner, in ways his better, but will there ever be a worthy heir to you?
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Today is the 20th anniversary of Roberto Bolaño’s death. Here in Barcelona where he died, there was a reading of a stage adaptation from The Part About the Critics in 2666. As an homage, it was alright. The critics narrated. Amalfitano and Ms. Bubis chimed in from the audience.
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Found in
@lostcitybooks
, a first run of the
@nyrbclassics
edition of Alberto Moravia’s Contempt, with the old 1999 design.
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Two of the best contemporary novels by Palestinian writers to read right now: Adania Shibli’s ‘Minor Detail’ and Isabella Hammad’s ‘Enter Ghost’.
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The last time a reading of this magnitude happened in DC, Norman Mailer peed on a bathroom floor before MC'ing his reading with Robert Lowell, Dwight MacDonald, and Paul Goodman with great vulgarity at the Ambassador. This won't be that, but will be fun.
THE place to be is DC this week— Wednesday, join us to celebrate the 1st
@washingreview
Presents:
🪩
@_ryanruby_
🪩
@zaintkhalid
🪩 Austyn Wohlers
🪩
@credenzaclear2
Hosted by
@_michaelbarron
,
@CMccafe
& me,
@sudhousedc
RSVP to join the mailing list
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Halfway done with my yearlong reading of Uwe Johnson’s Anniversaries, translated by Damion Searls.
Today I finished Book One: August 20th, 1967 - April 19th, 1968.
Tomorrow I start Book Two : April 20th, 1968 - August 19, 1968.
So far, it’s one of the best novels I’ve read.
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I reviewed the
@nyrbclassics
edition of Andrey Platonov's 'Chevengur' - "the Don Quixote of Soviet literature" with a tragic publishing history - for
@washingtonpost
.
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RIP Steve Albani. As a teenager in the 90s, when amplified and distorted music commercialized as alt rock, it seemed to me like the only genuine records were ones produced by him. He was the sound against selling out.
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“Oh man,” I said.
“Yeah,” said the cabbie from behind the shattered plastic of his screen, “Fuckin A.”
—Martin Amis (RIP)
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@alexrmoskowitz
Sufjan Stevens and his band performing two songs for my friend in a parking lot at Macrock 2004, all to cheer him up for not being able to get into their sold out show.
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At the Cimetière de Clarens with Vladimir, Vera, and Dmitri Nabokov.
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We aren’t talking enough about how devastating a blow the closure of Small Press Distribution (SPD) is to American poetry.
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In Geneva's Cimetière de Plainpalais with Borges and Musil.
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Tomorrow. Come on out. Have a few laughs. Grab a couple drinks. Welcome our readers and
@clereviewbooks
. Wish me farewell. It’s my last night in DC for awhile.
It’s the eve of the 2nd (and last, until after summer ⛱️) WRB
@washingreview
Presents, with
@clereviewbooks
@sudhousedc
!
Join us for readings by:
⛱️
@BigMeanInternet
⛱️
@MisterJGrantham
⛱️
@diazmarg
⛱️
@ANickRees
hosted by
@_michaelbarron
,
@CMccafe
& yours truly.
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After finishing one of its great novels and seeing my byline in its paper’s book review, I’d like to think that D.C. and I are growing fond of one another.
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I'm now accepting new clients for manuscript consulting / development. Having worked in book publishing for nearly 15 years editing fiction, non, and translations, I can offer a complimentary read and consultation. DM me if interested.
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It was the best of time, it was the Borst of times. Bring on the Lisa Borst era.
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I’ve been researching Clarice Lispector’s time in DC for a fiction project and outside of Benjamin Moser’s biography, this rich encapsulation of it and the book she wrote there is bravo.
I wrote about Clarice Lispector's hallucinogenic novel “The Apple in the Dark” for
@clereviewbooks
.
Digressions include: a meditation on order and disorder, sitting at lunch counters on tranquilizers, and … life in Eisenhower’s America.
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Gore Vidal and his partner Howard Austen (born Auster), buried together. Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington DC
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This is the best venue for everything literary but fiction in translation—with a roster that has included Natalia Ginzberg, Tove Ditlevsen, and Cristina Rivera Garza—and they’re doing a last call on submissions for a new issue.
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I’m proud to have edited this review, among my last for
@The_Rumpus
before I step down as its Book Reviews editor in May to focus on my writing. It's been a blast. Thanks + cheers to
@AMrjoian
@sc_trott
and all who wrote for and worked with me. Couldn't have done this without you
“What Chaudhuri best demonstrates in these early works are his formidable abilities as a storyteller.”
Anushka Joshi reviews three novels by Amit Chaudhuri. (
@nyrbclassics
@NYRB_Imprints
)
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I forgot to get a photo of me and Barbara Epler when I visited the ND office today and spoke with her for the first time in over 9 years, but it was a heartwarming reunion.
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Matvei Yankelevich's major essay on the realities faces by small presses examines their dependency on SPD. This is part 3 of 4, but the whole thing is worth a read.
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Congrats to them. It's the talented staff that continues to make Harper's "America's most interesting magazine." They deserve recognition and to have their requests met.
BREAKING NEWS: We, the staff of
@Harpers
, have formed a union with
@Local2110UAW
. Read more about why we have formed a union here.
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The problem with staggering publication dates is that you read all these great reviews of a novel that has come out in one country (UK) while remaining unavailable in another (US), so then you download the book on some third party ereader like I did, and hate yourself for it.
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Thank you to
@unburiedbooks
podcast for having me on to chat about Julio Ramón Ribeyro, one of the few and great Latin American writers published by
@nyrbclassics
Out now!
@_michaelbarron
guides us through the streets of Lima in our latest episode on Julio Ramón Ribeyro’s The Word of the Speechless.
Listen here:
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Two days into the year and we've already got 2024's best piece on Proust, a Madeleine for those who've read 'In Search of Lost Time,' and the rewards of reaching and reading 'Time Regained.'
Why read? To answer the question
@readliberties
let me write about the greatest reading experience there is: Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
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This book's design, its content, its writer: gold.
I love the new series cover look from
@andothertweets
and am honored to be a part of it with my first collection of short fiction.
GHOST PAINS is out March 5, 2024 and ARCs are now available.
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Thinking of memorable New Directions book titles:
Most lyrical: Tell Me Again How the White Heron Rises and Flies Across the Nacreous River at Twilight Toward the Distant Islands, by Hayden Carruth
Most hilarious: Who Has Been Tampering with these Pianos?, by Montague O'Reilly
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Love Pasolini high-kicking a soccer ball in a three-piece suit.
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Having an eye-popping, couch jumping moment seeing
@zaintkhalid
’s novel Brother Alive on the short list for
@bookcritics
John Leonard Prize for Best Debut! Congrats!
ANNOUNCING THE FINALISTS FOR PUBLISHING YEAR 2022
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Some hauls from El Salvador. The Castellanos Moyas were sold out.
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@FluentMundo
John Darnielle's Harper's essay on visiting John Cage's centuries long piece being played in Halberstadt. For the content and for the form:
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One of my favorite contemporary American writers—in addition to James Ellroy, I would add a stylist in the vain of Thomas Bernhard—just got himself a honey of a book deal.
Matt is a seriously cool/smart writer & I am so smug to be publishing these books cc
@alexanderjkane
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Today's the last day for members of
@bookcritics
to vote in its special board election. The stickers and t-shirts I ordered for my campaign didn't arrive in time, but you may still be stirred by my statement included on the ballot. Go vote!
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Some non-fiction essays waiting to be translated into English. The Chirbes—The Year it Snowed in Valencia—is a personal history piece about 7k words and the Labatut—The Stone of Madness—on Lovecraft, PKD and other writers of the strange, around 9k. Maybe right for a magazine?
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Stoked for these two forthcoming anthologies—
Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories from
@TwoLinesPress
(March)
Best Literary Translations 2024 from
@DeepVellum
(April)
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Pretty sure the head and shoulders cover for Hisham Matar’s forthcoming novel ‘My Friends’ is the same head and shoulders from the New Directions 1950 edition of Julien Gracq’s ‘A Dark Stranger’
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This is the final weekend to vote for the
@bookcritics
NBCC board (I'm a candidate). If you're a member, please check out the ballot and vote.
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Only in New York is your accountant the same person who once hosted an event with Gary Indiana at
@mcnallyjackson
.
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Sad to hear about the indefinite hiatus of
@TheWhiteReview
. They were the launch pad for some of the best writers in English and in translation of the past decade. I was happy to have been able to interview Gary Indiana, César Aira, and
@harikunzru
for them.
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Sitting in the quiet car where the woman next to me is reading I am not Sidney Poitier. I tapped on the book and gave a thumbs up. We had a brief verbal exchange about loving Percival Everett only to be quickly shushed.
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@TheCautiousCrip
Book publishing has just become more corporate. Editors are accountable to quotas and can get all caught up in the zeitgeist in trying to meet them. Dan Sinykin writes much better about all this in BIG FICTION.
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Won't be in town for this, but what a line-up. And those walk-in slots between 3am-6am bring out heroes, insomniacs, or somnambulists like me who once stumbled into a 5am slot for this event some years ago and read to an audience of two. Worth it.
Updated flyer and Schedule. See you on Friday and Saturday and Sunday.
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Thinking of legally changing my middle name, the randomly chosen “Scott,” to my mother’s maiden “Montes.”
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Cheered to see that the first book
@mervatim
mentions in her great essay on Calvino is The Castle of Crossed Destinies, a novel in the quasi form of a Tarot reading, and a b-side favorite. I read it over the pandemic then learned Tarot to give readings to friends over Zoom.
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@markkrotov
@erikmbaker
The end of this piece had me thinking of another Delillo line: “It never happened until it happens again. Then it never happened.”
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Sunday evening talking to mother about my grandmother, whose full name was Sylvia Concepción Rodas-Carrera Guerra viuda de Montes Weathers. She was the youngest of 24 children, born in El Salvador to a Guatemalan mother of Mayan, Pipil and Spanish ancestry.
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Souli Boutis on the new translations of two Pasolini novels by Tim Parks out now with
@nyrbclassics
“For the underclass, sidelined by progress and prosperity, life is lived in the unbridled play of vulgar speech.”
Souli Bouthis reviews Pier Paolo Pasolini's BOYS ALIVE and THEOREM (
@nybooks
), translated by
@TimParksauthor
➡️
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It's Norman Mailer's birthday today. Terrific writer; terrible man.
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@brandonousley
@NifMuhammad
Strange coincidence / connection to that album is Byrd’s drummer Harvey Mason’s solo 1981 album M.V.P. which has him running hurdles on perhaps the same track and field photo shoot. Though he wasn’t a member of The Blackbyrds…🤷🏻♂️
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This and
@the_point_mag
’s interview with
@xlorentzen
made for good radio on the drive up I-95 from DC to NYC.
My first ever podcast! It's an interview with
@AntonJaegermm
concerning his blockbuster essay on "hyperpolitics" for
@the_point_mag
.
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Terrible news about my friend Cathy Linh Che. There isn't much recourse in this country to challenge such decisions, but
@KundiCommunity
is passing around a letter demanding the board's accountability for this one.
On June 4, Cathy Linh Che, Executive Director of
@kundimanforever
, was fired after serving Kundiman as Executive Director and staff member for 12 years.
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The Israeli military is bombing Rafah, the most densely populated area in the world, while Americans watch the Super Bowl. This is intentional. This is genocide.
We're demanding the world watching the
#superbowl
turn their eyes to
#Rafah
.
#alleyesongaza
#CeasefireNOW
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Congrats to my friend
@BigMeanInternet
on the front page
@BookWorld
spread of his book ‘Palo Alto’
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Lorca went in search of duende,
@zaintkhalid
went in search of Lorca. Great piece.
“Reading Federico García Lorca’s Poet in New York is akin to curling into your lover, your nose dipped in the well of their collarbone, as they detail your mother’s various personality disorders.”
Zain Khalid on looking for Lorca in New York.
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Discovered that the street we’re living on is named after Gustavo Bécquer, a 19th-century Spanish Romantic poet who is famous for this little verse:
What is poetry? You ask into my pupils
with yours so blue.
What is poetry? Are you really questioning?
Poetry…is you.
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My favorite translator of African literature, James Kirkup—who translated Camara Laye’s Radiance of the King and Tété-Michel Kpomassie’s An African in Greenland—was the last man tried in England for homosexuality, over a poem. Graham Chapman of Monty Python paid his legal fees.
Hi! Cool news. We are seeking submissions of translated works by African writers! Translators: Submit what you've got, specifically—
✅novels
✅story collections
✅literary non-fiction
See the call below. More details at the link.
📢PASS IT ON📢 Thanks!
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Some plucky editor really ought to acquire the translation rights to Hu Bo’s novels.
Hu Bo’s enigmatic film An Elephant Sitting Still (2018) isn’t an easy watch by any stretch. It’s long (close to 4 hours), grey, grim, and often emotionally taxing. But ultimately I thought it was moving and compelling. An underrated masterpiece—highly recommended.
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I suppose if you’re a fan of the band Television and a translator of Swedish literature, this book described on Tom Verlaine’s Wikipedia page might be of interest.
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Considerations of the "classics" have generally defaulted to the West. The problem isn't just NYRB's — plenty of publishers have skin in the game of new classics making and fall into the same patterns — rather there isn't a unified audience for classics of non-Western origin.
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Any translation from Elina Alter is one to read.
WOUND now has a gorgeous cover, thanks to
@NLCaputo
! Coming from
@CatapultStory
9/5/23
A queer, contemporary AS I LAY DYING, Oksana Vasyakina's debut novel follows a young lesbian poet on a journey to her hometown in Siberia, where she has promised to bury her mother’s ashes...
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Fosse!
BREAKING NEWS
The 2023
#NobelPrize
in Literature is awarded to the Norwegian author Jon Fosse “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable.”
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@SophieHaigney
When I worked at New Directions, I tried to arrange a celebration of his centenary in 2014. I called the owner who screamed at me: you people think because some poet drank himself to death here that we’d want to have a party about it!?” and hung up.
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The last book review of 2023 I edited for
@The_Rumpus
went up this morning. Since June, I've been lucky to work with talented critics on compelling literature. You can find them mixed here with poetry reviews edited by
@Lsoman
and copyedited by
@sc_trott
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@IneluctableQuak
Carpentaria is like Bulgakov’s M&M set in the outback. ND lost a bid on it many years ago to Atria of all places where it was released in the US without fanfare. Black Swan, Wright’s next novel, was offered to ND but turned down. Kind of a dud. I’m curious about the new one.
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@likaluca
A Woman Like Her by
@SanamMKhi
, about the “honor killing” of a Pakistani celebrity. One of my Melville House acquisitions and a Times Notable Book.
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Envious of everyone who has received the new physical issue of Bookforum while I wait far from home for it to go up online.
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Read this on the train. Like reading Antwerp graffitied over Guernica.
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Erpenbeck and Hofmann are the Jordan-Pippen of writer-translator duos. Congrats to them and
@NewDirections
for the Booker International win.
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Another discovery: the owner of the apartment where we are staying translated Eliot Weinberger’s Muhammad into Catalan.
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It's true.
@FdezMallo
and I once had a percussion / synth jam one afternoon in a rehearsal space in Brooklyn. He edited the results into "Nuestro gran best norteamericano" a song by
@revinientes
, his musical duo with his partner Pilar Rubí. You can hear it on their Soundcloud.
@_michaelbarron
y su gran batería, minimalista en elementos pero muy rica en sonido, en la canción ‘Nuestro gran beso norteamericano’,
de
@revinientes
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Awesome book, awesome translation, future NBA contender, calling it now.
Please join me,
@dlb
, and his companionate goat -- the goat and I have remarkably similar colouring -- to chat about Laurent Mauvignier's "The Birthday Party." Thursday, March 2nd from 5 to 6 PM. Hosted by
@CommunityBkstr
and
@transitbooks
.
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