Best of the Week: October 17 – 21, 2016

TODAY: In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre explains his refusal of the Nobel Prize in Le Figaro, writing he always refused official distinctions and did not want to be “institutionalized.” 

• Margaret Atwood on fan fiction, retelling Shakespeare, and her own artistic legacy (“Not dead yet.”). | Hazlitt
• “I have no tolerance for people who are not thinking deeply about things… And I have no tolerance for people just not being a part of the world and being in it and not trying to change it.” An interview with Jacqueline Woodson. | NPR
• “Poetry offers me a way to rewire and channel the sense of cultural loss that I feel into a new kind of culture, without losing myself or having my identity subsumed into a monolithic ‘Indian’ identity.” An interview with Tommy Pico. | The Rumpus
• T Magazine pays tribute to the Greats: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Gloria Steinem, and others write thank-you notes to Michelle Obama, and Jeffrey Eugenides profiles Zadie Smith. | T Magazine
• Would you like to do a good deed? Garnette Cadogan on walking in, and moving to, New York City. | BuzzFeed
• On the origins (a bathroom in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1969, on LSD) and implications (things are bad, but they can always get worse) of Hariton Pushwagner’s art. | The Paris Review
• Anita Rojas on what translation means to her: “Establishing an intense relationship which unfolds entirely within the written word.” | Asymptote Journal
• “Realism is a genre–a very rich one, that gave us and continues to give us lots of great fiction… But by making that one genre the standard of quality, by limiting literature to it, we were leaving too much serious writing out of serious consideration.” Ursula K. Le Guin on writing various types of fiction. | The Guardian
• Although nothing seems arbitrary, the books are surprise after surprise: Deborah Eisenberg on the fiction of Henry Green. | NYRB
• Delving into the Three Marinas (“the warrior one,” “the spiritual one,” and “the bullshit one”) in Marina Abramović’s new memoir. | The New Republic
• All the subtlety of a Donald Trump rally: Adapting Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, a “frightening book for frightening times,” for the stage today. | The New Yorker
• “How I learned the rules so I could break them, but I found breaking them a very hard thing.” Larissa Pham on the taste of rightness and writing her first novel. | Catapult
• On Carmilla, the original vampire novel of modern Europe, which features nightmares of giant cats and strong lesbian undertones. | Atlas Obscura
• “I always want my books to be a kind of couch. You read a few pages in the late afternoon, fall asleep, and have a memorable dream.” An interview with Eliot Weinberger. | Tin House
• Capital D her: How Charles Dickens “politely wiggle[d] his way out of that very tight corset of Victorian censorship.” | The Millions

And on Literary Hub:

• Postcards to a younger, much better novelist: Derek Palacio shares early correspondence with his wife, Claire Vaye Watkins.
• Eileen Myles on Donald Trump: “Locker room banter” is just another name for patriarchy.
• On queerness, empathy, and Afro-Modernity: Mark Gevisser and Pwaangulongi Dauod in conversation.
• On the literature of crowds: the pleasures and anxieties of the collective, from Benjamin to DeLillo.
• There’s still no word for ‘memoir’ in German publishing: the Buchpreis, the book blogger, and other hot topics heading to Frankfurt…
• James Lasdun on how Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr. Ripley transcends genre and rises to the status of American mythology.
• Indies recommend: 10 small press books you should read, from of Green Apple Bookstore.
• Writing a novel is just like searching for ecstasy in Cambodia. Well, it’s close.
• In conversation with Joanna Kavenna, champion of the contemporary philosophical novel.
• How fiction treats the elderly, aging, and ancient.
• Benjamin Percy on finding that sweet spot where genre meets literary.
• Tessa Hadley, C. E. Morgan, and Jerry Pinto on the future of libraries.
• Jonathan Lethem on gambling, the American left, and formative grief.
• Whose death gets to count for what? On racism, gun violence, and the failures of the official narrative.
• In defense of literature’s bad best friends.
• The radical bookseller: Why Donald Trump really needs to meet Pussy Riot.
• Marlon James: Why I’m done with talking about diversity.
• Margaret Atwood on magic, technology, and changing the world: in conversation with Paul Holdengraber.
• Where is climate change in this election? Joshua Jelly-Shapiro on the ongoing peril of ignoring a Caribbean at risk.
• Who should own what in the digital age? Jeff VanderMeer on why you should care about the end of Black Clock, plus an interview with Black Clock editor Bruce Bauman and stories by Joanna Scott and Jeff VanderMeer from the final issue of the magazine.
• On travel memoirs by black women writers: Nneka Okona on books that brought her comfort and courage.
• From Weimar to Appalachia, a syllabus for our brush with fascism.
• Inside the world of judging the Man-Booker Prize: on reading a book a day and facing the wrath of the shortlist.
• How to tell if you’re a Southern writer or a Brooklyn writer…

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