TODAY: In 1972, Yasunari Kawabata, the first Japanese author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, died.
- Tracy K. Smith on poetry, grief, and what memoir can do that poetry can’t. | Literary Hub
- Today in inspirational literary partnerships: Agent Scully & a Green Party politician; the Dali Lama & Desmond Tutu. | GalleyCat, The Guardian
- The PEN American Center just announced the shortlists for its literary awards (15 minutes ago, if you’re keeping track). Included: Roxane Gay, Teju Cole, Claudia Rankine, Molly Antopol, and Leslie Jamison. | The New York Times
- So much depends upon the “complex tango of virility and fragility” in William Carlos William’s poetry. | Jacket2
- In some sort of meta-ekphrasis, Colm Tóibín describes an exhibition of paintings depicting Don Quixote. | NYRB
- Personally, we believe the Zagat for prostitutes/erotic adventure binary to be a false one. | The New Yorker
- Mary McCarthy and Patricia Highsmith forged a friendship by complaining about taxes. | Lapham’s Quarterly
- A new podcast, Ampersand, debuts with interviews from Mark Doty and Maggie Nelson. | Poets & Writers
- On Guantánamo Diary and The Torture Report: it is “clear that the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was, in every sense, a moral and strategic catastrophe.” | The Millions
- The New Yorker’s art editor learned English through imagery, using comics to “see a written language as it’s spoken.” | Guernica
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