TODAY: In 1922, Etienne Leroux, influential Afrikaans writer and a key member of the South African Sestigers literary movement, is born.
- Five must-reads on the decline of western democracy: Ed Luce looks for bigger picture reasons for how we got here. | Literary Hub
- Camille T. Dungy on the kindness (and assumptions) of strangers while traveling with a baby. | Literary Hub
- Rescuing the treasures of a dead jazz legend: Sun Ra, Alton Abraham, and the taming of the freak. | Literary Hub
- “In France we like our cows too.” Christian Lorentzen speaks with Michel Houellebecq about his new photography exhibition, “French Bashing.” | Garage Magazine
- Apocalypse and nihilism: on the enduring preoccupations of Russian literature and how its great writers tackled the question of revolution. | The New York Times
- How should a person be? Wallace Shawn on revenge, punishment, bravery, and cowardice. | Literary Hub
- The canvas is the text: Zadie Smith on the paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, an “artist . . . unusual in describing herself as a writer as much as a painter.” | The New Yorker
- “Nothing I say is getting through to him, but perhaps he fears the same of me.” Rahawa Haile takes a food-centric road trip with her father along the Appalachian Trail. | Eater
- Speaking with Han Ong, the playwright bringing Gil Scott-Heron back to life. | Literary Hub
- “[He] can be awkward, but at the same time astonishing beauty is sowed into every scene and stanza of his work.” James Wood on Thomas Hardy. | The London Review of Books
- This fall, Arsenal Pulp Press will launch Robin’s Egg, a new humor imprint featuring writing by comedians. | Arsenal Pulp Press
- On the proliferation of flash fiction, “a form that allows and admits adaptation to a changing world.” | Los Angeles Review of Books
- At the world’s preeminent feminist speculative fiction convention: a report from WisCon, site of decades of debate and safe spaces. | Literary Hub
And on Literary Hub: Crime and the city: On the criminal legacy of colonialism in Kolkata • Five books making news this week: moths, memoir, and thousand-mile walks • From The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
