LitHub Daily: June 23, 2016

• On the harrowing unreality of life in contemporary China, and the new literary genre that seeks to capture it. | Literary Hub
• Christos Ikonomou, accidental prophet of a country in crisis. | Literary Hub
• An outlier in Ogden: Judith Freeman on growing up Mormon. | Literary Hub
• “When people can’t fight you, they say, ‘Why are you so pessimistic?’ It’s a different question than ‘Are you correct?’” An interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. | Playboy
• Lydia Davis on translating classics, introducing musicality into texts, and entering the skin of a work’s original author. | Words Without Borders
• Bravery is easier for the dying: A short story by C.E. Morgan. | Oxford American
• “I am not pro-doom; everything is not on the slippery slope to doom. And on the next occasion the experiment may miraculously work!” John Freeman profiles Kay Ryan. | ZYZZYVA
• “Do you not realize the America that created Trump has always been there?” Garrard Conley on doubt, denial, and being saved by literature. | The Rumpus
• A poet, of all people, should understand the weight of a name: A short story by Alyson Foster. | Joyland
• “I realized there were loads of novels that were good that weren’t in English, and I realized there was something I could do.” Speaking with Don Bartlett, Knausgaard’s English translator. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• Respawn, memory: On the rise of the video game memoir. | Signature Reads

Also on Literary Hub: Handwritten letters from legendary American artists · 5 reasons why Moby-Dick just won’t die · Their favorite emotion was disgust: From Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles