Lit Hub Daily: January 10, 2022

• “Whenever I think of Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, I think of boys.” Andre Bagoo on his 100-year-old boyfriend. | Lit Hub Criticism

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• Jonathan Evison considers the loose classification of the “Great American Novel,” and trying to write one of his own. | Lit Hub

• Nothing like it before or since: Lou Cornum on Almanac of the Dead, Leslie Marmon Silko’s magnum opus and a hallmark of Indigenous literature. | Lit Hub Criticism

• “Like saying your first ‘I love you,’ you can’t exactly ignore your first Daddy.” Rachel Krantz on the relief of owning one’s submissiveness. | Lit Hub Memoir

• Taylor Harris talks to Lynn Steger Strong about writing This Boy We Made, a memoir of medical motherhood. | Lit Hub

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• How Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of The Plot, learned to create tension and suspense on the page. | Lit Hub Radio

• A remembrance of the life of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, the author of Dictee. | The New York Times

• “She has spent her entire career freeing herself from the hoops of apology and pardon.” Nathan Whitlock on the work of Helen Garner. | NYRB

• A roundup of some of the great translated literature coming in 2022. | Words Without Borders

• Kate Harding considers the demise of critical reading. | Dame

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• Trinity College Dublin is starting a massive project to restore and move some of its most delicate manuscripts. | The Guardian

• “Recitatif,” a short story by Toni Morrison, is set to be published as a book. | Los Angeles Times

• Niela Orr pays tribute to bell hooks: “To ask questions is to be an agent in one’s own destiny, a crucial step in any attempt to find meaning within that existential at-oddsness hooks evoked.” | The Paris Review

Also on Lit Hub: A glimpse inside the world’s most beautiful libraries • Radhika Sanghani’s favorite self-help books • Read from Jabari Asim’s latest novel, Yonder