Lit Hub Weekly: October 30-November 3, 2023

TODAY: In 1899, Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams is published.

“The American administration, through the mouth of President Biden, says that the Palestinians can’t have their dead and bury them, too.” Fady Joudah offers a Palestinian meditation in a time of annihilation. | Lit Hub
Moeen Farrokhi recounts translating Infinite Jest into Farsi, alongside other translators around the world: “It was in these minute ingredients, dissected as if the fate of the world hung in the balance, that we discovered not the Truth, but fragmented truths, reflected in each language.” | Lit Hub On Translation
In which Randy Sparkman talks to AI about Eudora Welty: “Acknowledging all the fears about sentience and agency, about active misuse and unintended consequences, its ability to help us create can only be transformative in result and implication.” | Lit Hub Tech
How David Cornwell, civil servant turned bored spy, became pseudonymous novelist John Le Carré. | Lit Hub Biography
Carlo Rovelli’s White Holes, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory, and Alice McDermott’s Absolution all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. | Book Marks
David Masciotra on the golden age of the erotic thriller and the direct-to-video pipeline that kept it all going. | CrimeReads
Salman Rushdie asks what fables can tell us about peace. | The New Yorker
On Elizabeth Gilbert’s “neutered rhetoric of brand management” and the emptiness of literature written for the market. | Noema
Jess Bergman talks to Dan Sinykin about his book Big Fiction and the realities of conglomerate publishing. | The Baffler
“In these 30 years, Escobar has ceased to be just a drug trafficker and murderer and has become a media personality.” Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vázquez considers Pablo Escobar’s enduring legacy. | El País
Artforum editor-in-chief David Velasco was fired after publishing an open letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians and supporting a ceasefire in Gaza, signed by thousands of artists and curators. | The Intercept
“I was watching the private work of a writer, which is also that of a reader. It was part of the commitment to figuring out what made a good sentence: an interdependence between form and feeling.” Wyatt Mason profiles Sigrid Nunez. | New York Times Magazine
At long last, cookbooks are acknowledging the realities of dishwashing. | Slate
Signed, sealed, delivered: The private equity firm KKR has completed its acquisition of Simon & Schuster. | New York Times
“Being a creative person does not have to mean sacrificing everything to appease the demons in your head.” James C. Kaufman on the importance of recognizing everyday creativity. | Aeon
“It’s a very particular kind of crime against humanity, and, behind it, lies a story that goes well beyond what is happening in Gaza. Let’s call it colonization by dehydration.” Essays on Palestine by Jaskiran Dhillon, Siddhartha Deb, Hadeel Assali, Bruce Robbins, Andrew Ross, and Nadine Fattaleh. | n+1
“To know Palestinian history is to experience endless déjà vu.” Esmat Elhalaby on Gaza and the Palestinian poets Muin Bseiso and Mahmoud Darwish. | Public Books
Five displaced journalists on how exile has influenced their writing. | The Dial
Leah Johnson, author and owner of Indianapolis’s Loudmouth Books, discusses the work of fighting book bans and uplifting marginalized writers. | Esquire
“Our politics cannot rise to the majesty or horror of this world; neither can they meet the simple, day-to-day realities of life in this country—only art is worthy of the task.” Sterling HolyWhiteMountain contemplates Cormac McCarthy. | High Country News
Graywolf Press has launched an Graywolf Lab, “an online platform for interdisciplinary conversations and new writing.” | Graywolf Lab