Best of the Week: February 22 – 26, 2016

TODAY: In 1902, John Steinbeck is born in Salinas, CA. 

• “My children loved Hero Boy and his dead zombie eyes.” Zadie Smith on belief, puppets, and the uncanny valley. | NYRB
• “Though the door wasn’t exactly closed in my face, I still have reservations about the instances I’m invited in.” On writing as a critic of color. | Canadian Art
• “I just spent so much of my time as a kid answering the question: What Are You?” An interview with Alexander Chee. | BOMB Magazine
• On the Dark Room Collective, a black writing group and “starry critical mass whose impact on American letters continues to expand.” | Harvard Magazine
• 40 Iranian media outlets have raised $600,000 to add to the 27-year-old fatwa on Salman Rushdie. | The Guardian
• “I don’t think Hillary has horns though she does have a vagina and wouldn’t you want it sitting on the chair in the Oval Office (not to get all weird) because things will never be the same.” Eileen Myles on Hillary Clinton. | BuzzFeed
• Merge scenes, murder characters, quit writing altogether: Tony Tulathimutte offers advice on lowering word count. | Catapult
• “Large swathes of the English language are almost as lifeless as a ‘dead language,’” and other fun facts via the updated OED. | Full Stop
• Publishing is a monoculture: 50 people share their experiences of working in the depressingly and overwhelmingly white publishing industry. | Brooklyn Magazine
• Sarah Howe on changing British poetry, writing towards hallucination, and Borges’ fictional taxonomy. | The Honest Ulsterman
• “I continue to want to try to find ways to attach language to the horror of Donald Trump.” An excerpt from Rick Moody’s diary of the presidential election. | The Believer Logger
• “I like to write…sometimes I’m afraid I like it too much. When I get into work, I don’t want to leave it.” A rare, 11-minute interview with Harper Lee. | WNYC
• Edwidge Danticat on Go Tell It on the Mountain, “protest chant, a hymn, a rebuke, a memorial, a prayer, a testimonial, a confessional, and, in [her] opinion, a masterpiece.” | The New Yorker
• “It stands to reason, then, that liberals become yugely pleased when they encounter a white liberal in whom they can deduce an equivalent, or, honestly, more genuine and utterly sane version of that same authenticity.” Joshua Cohen on Bernie Sanders. | The New Republic
• Witch-hunting Spanish puppeteers and beyond: How fear of terrorism is diminishing freedom of speech in Europe. | The New York Times

And on Literary Hub:

• Can literature heal the scars of a nation? Nayomi Munaweera reports from Sri Lanka’s Galle Literary Festival.
• Paul Mason explains why there is no market-driven solution to our climate catastrophe.
• From Hawks to Fish: four poems by Helen McDonald.
• On the end of the world (and the end of genre): Laura van den Berg in conversation with Emily St. John Mandel.
• Why John Gimlette did the not very sensible thing and became a travel writer.
• There really is “seriously funny” German literature: a preview of the Festival Neue Literatur plus six newly translated stories from contemporary German-language writers.
• On A Phone Call From Paul: Paul Holdengraber calls Clive James to discuss life, death, and bookshelves.
• 23 books to be excited about in March: Lit Hub contributors offer their suggestions for next month.
• Walt Whitman is dead, I’m divorced, and the universe goes on: J. Aaron Sanders on life and death.
• Shawna Yang Ryan on five essential tales of immigration.
• Stevie Smith: iconic 20th-century poet, doodler of charming illustrations.
• Dear Rick Moody, life coach: Should I tell them I love them?

---