Best of the Week: March 28 – April 1, 2016

TODAY: In 1805, Hans Christian Andersen, Danish fairy tale master, is born. 

• Kaitlyn Greenidge on the implications of “objectivity,” the impossible choices of poverty, and her mother’s garden. | The New York Times Sunday Book Review
• Zinzi Clemmons remembers her cousin Malik Taylor, aka Phife Dawg, a rapper who “chose to speak to the entirety of his experience.” | The Paris Review
• “By reading I cannot reanimate corpses, but I can orient myself toward imagining possibilities, tempering my mind for compassionate agility, caring for individual victims of violence.” On corpses, Isis, and contemporary Iraqi fiction. | The Point
• “He was untouchable, or he thought he was. But that era is over, for all those guys.” On the recent allegations against Thomas Sayers Ellis, institutional responsibility, and important, inappropriate literary men. | Jezebel
• Jeff Shotts, the executive editor of Graywolf Press, shares five recent poetry debuts that he continually returns to. | PEN America
• The 2015 VIDA count, examining representation of race and ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and ability in literary publications, is out. | VIDA
• Ottessa Moshfegh on ancient narrative texts, Google alerts, and cynically writing pathetic men. | Literary Bennington
• The Firecracker Awards longlist, the Lukas Prize winners and finalists, and the Young Lions Fiction Award finalists have been announced. | CLMP, Columbia Journalism School, NYPL
• “In a country where free speech was being actively targeted by a minority of violent fundamentalists, the Dhaka Lit Fest was gleefully wearing a bull’s-eye on its back.” Attending a literary festival in Bangladesh after the violent attacks on publishers and bloggers. | VICE
• In Afghanistan, a national book drive has provided 20,000 books and seven libraries to “provinces with a reputation for some of the worst violence of the war.” | The New York Times
• “[Baudelaire] could always observe because no one was observing him, his purposelessness safeguarded by the warming city streetlights.” Doreen St. Félix on the black flâneur. | GOOD Magazine
• Manuja Waldia on designing Shakespeare covers inspired by both app icons and ancient hieroglyphics. | The Atlantic
• “Our bodies hardly ever tell just one story.” Maia Silber on Lena Dunham, Emily Gould, and female exposure in art and literature. | Berfrois
• The Morning News’s annual Tournament of Books has crowned its champion: Paul Beatty’s The Sellout. | The Morning News
• It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to: Kate Leary rounds up some of literature’s saddest birthday scenes, of which Lesley Gore would certainly have approved. | Ploughshares

And on Literary Hub:

• Remembering the great Jim Harrison, who died on Saturday at age 78, through some of his final poems.
• Once upon a time in Berlin: Rob Spillman and Darryl Pinckney talk ex-pats, fiction, and late-century bohemia.
• How a non-fiction writer finds his next subject: Erik Larson on escaping the “dark country of no ideas.”
• Katie Roiphe recounts the last days of Susan Sontag.
• Sofia Samatar on the rich language of fantasy and the 13 words that made her a writer.
• Molly Prentiss: from a California commune to life in the big city, you can’t do it alone.
• The secrets behind the cover of Judy Blume’s first adult novel in nearly 20 years.
• Finally, a March Madness bracket about erotic writing: The First-Annual Tournament of Literary Sex Writing.
• Unexpected joy in a dark moviehouse: Karan Mahajan watches Satyajit Ray in New York.
• Who can fictionalize slavery? Katy Simpson Smith on writing across time and race.
• Paul Holdengraber and Eric Jarosinski, the man behind Nein Quarterly, continue their call about the philosophy of Twitter.
• Remembering the great Jim Harrison: reflections from Charles Frazier, Jayne Anne Phillips, Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Colum McCann, Terry McDonell, and many more.
• Lynn Steger Strong on seeking the life of a writer and mother. | Literary Hub
• What to read next month: your April Book Preview from Lit Hub contributors.
• Why I wrote a novel about sex trafficking: Jane Mendelsohn on the power of fiction to bear witness.
• Namwali Serpell on Nnedi Okorafor and the new generation of Afrofuturists.
• Ursula K. Le Guin on racism, anarchy, and hearing her characters speak.

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