TODAY: In 1936, dissident playwright and 1st President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel is born.
- On the genius of Edward P. Jones (on his 70th birthday): Emily Temple tries to figure out why, exactly, The Known World is so good · Elizabeth Poliner considers the short stories. | Lit Hub
- “Given the state of the world at present, we can use all the hope we can get.” From Indigenous practices to protecting oceans, climate change readings for October. | Lit Hub Climate Change
- “The Grand Old Party has come a long way in 160 years, dragging the rest of us down with it.” Noam Chomsky talks to David Barsamian about America, rogue state. | Lit Hub Politics
- “Miracles occur when typical and neurotypical minds unite. The universe gets a little bigger.” Madeleine Ryan on learning about her autism while finishing her novel. | Lit Hub Craft
- “If economies are built using the tools of fiction, then they can be reimagined using those same tools.” Saanya Jain recommends some sci-fi to help out the economists. | Lit Hub
- “He’s totally heinous, but his helplessness is endearing so I tell him not to worry.” Matt Summell on why we love our terrible pets. | Lit Hub Memoir
- While accepting the New Statesman/Goldsmiths Prize, Bernardine Evaristo envisions “a future literary landscape with a wide range of totally inclusive novels on our bookshelves.” | New Statesman
- “Homer’s rings whirl us toward revelation; the circles in Sebald’s restless narration lead us to a series of locked doors to which there is no key.” Daniel Mendelsohn on W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. | The Paris Review
- Behind the decision at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to “relegate to storage collections that for decades have distinguished the museum.” | New York Review of Books
- The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, a literary event in Australia born out of tragedy, continues to endure after nearly 20 years. It will take place online this year. | The Sydney Morning Herald
- “If it comes from Latin America, it has to be magical realism, in some way, even if it looks like something completely different.” Fernando Sdrigotti on the long, damaging legacy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. | LARB
- “I’ve been scribbling a lot, using the broken heart—the letters of the broken heart—to write.” Nikky Finney and Jericho Brown in conversation. | The Believer
- The ex-wife of French author Emmanuel Carrere has accused him of lying in his celebrated memoir, Yoga. | France24
