LitHub Daily: May 20, 2016

TODAY: In 1946, W.H. Auden becomes a US citizen. 

• A brief look at a dark genre, the suicide memoir: true crime, mystery, and grief. | Literary Hub
• On the 30th anniversary of Alex Haley’s classic, Nikki Giovanni on race, hope, fatherhood, and Roots. | Literary Hub
• Garth Greenwell and Garrard Conley on their plans to visit North Carolina bookstores. | Literary Hub
• Joyful tears: why Deborah Smith, translator of The Vegetarian, cried while accepting the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. | Literary Hub
• How Frances Stroh survived the downfall of the family beer empire. | Literary Hub
• “The idea that every ‘I’ is largely made up of others and by the others wasn’t theoretical; it was a reality.” Elena Ferrante and Nicola Lagioia in conversation. | The New Yorker
• Jonathan Lee on moments when the outside comes hurtling in, internal soundtracks, and Tristram Shandy–like aimlessness. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• On David Foster Wallace’s understanding of tennis as an “aesthetic phenomenon.” | Guernica
• Karan Bajaj on his writing routine (a 4-1-4 model), his influences (perennial Eastern philosophical texts), and his advice to aspiring writers (live a big, interesting life). | Signature Reads
• On the enduring cult of the literary fanfiction-spawning Brontë sisters. | The Atlantic
• Are words non-renewable resources? On overused words, slothful disregard, and evolving meanings. | Flavorwire
• “Perhaps it is the air of the illicit that makes her unable to focus on economics.” A short story by Marie Calloway. | Playboy
• Yumiko Tsumura on translating Kazuko Shiraishi, “a lone star with the independent stance of her experimental surreal poetry.” | Asymptote

Also on Literary Hub: How urban spaces shape the books we read · Interview with a Gatekeeper: Riverhead’s Rebecca Saletan on the author’s voice · From “Blackout” by Alyson Foster from her collection Heart Attack Watch

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