LitHub Daily: December 31, 2016

TODAY: In 1894, essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno dies.

• Lenny Letter’s second poetry issue features work by Natalie Diaz, Aziza Barnes, and more. | Lenny Letter
• “People often say they feel like they know me, but I know they don’t—they’re just responding to an effect created by artifice.” An interview with Maggie Nelson. | The Creative Independent
• “Zama takes up directly the matter of Argentine tradition and the Argentine character: what they are, what they should be.” J.M. Coetzee on Antonio Di Benedetto’s novel. | The New York Review of Books
• 17 books to look forward to next year, from Han Kang’s second book to be translated into English to Colm Toibin’s retelling of the Greek legend of Clytemnestra. | The New York Times
• Matthew Salesses curates 12 great books by immigrant writers “in a year where an anti-immigration candidate rode a virulently xenophobic campaign to the White House.” | VICE
• “I am sure that the dead are alive, but I don’t know what they are doing precisely.” An interview with Alice Notely. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• Both poetry and democracy derive their power from their ability to create a unified whole out of disparate parts: Reexamining Walt Whitman’s claim that the United States “are essentially the greatest poem.” | The Atlantic
• The damage done to the Hong Kong publishing industry is unprecedented: On the aftermath of Xi Jinping’s crackdown on free speech. | The Guardian
• Utopia is Europe turned upside down: Reflecting on Thomas More’s Utopia on the 500th anniversary of its publication. | Hyperallergic
• Photographs of the “private spaces” of 10 notable people who died in 2016, including Jim Harrison, Elie Wiesel, and Edward Albee. | The New York Times Magazine
• Did I understand what it meant to renounce my mother tongue? Yiyun Li on her decision to write in English. | The New Yorker
• From Memoirs of a Polar Bear to Ema, the Captive, five great works of literature in translation published this year. | NPR
• “But here’s the thing. Maybe it’s time to get uncomfortable and upset. Maybe those feelings can be acted upon.” An interview with Emily Raboteau. | The Rumpus
• Publishing can’t keep living off the fumes of the boy wizard: Why publishing needs a blockbuster book in 2017. | The Los Angeles Times
• Threshold Editions has offered alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos a $250,000 book deal. | Hollywood Reporter

 

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