LitHub Daily: May 18, 2015

TODAY: In 1944, W. G. Sebald, future author of the finest nine-page sentence in literature, was born.

• Andre Alexis catalogs all 21 animals that inspired his novel, Fifteen Dogs (not a listicle, no puppies). | Literary Hub
• Franz Wright, beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, died on Thursday. | SF Gate
• Tired of reading opinions on Knausgaard? Listen to some (James Wood’s, Meghan O’Rourke’s, Bill Pierce’s), for a change. | Radio Open Source
• Renata Adler’s After the Tall Timber shows a writer who has moved beyond the “disaffected glamour” of her fiction writing to “express disappointment” in her readership, which is the most disaffectedly glamorous thing a writer can do. | The New York Times Sunday Book Review
• “The legacy of slavery is very much with us today, and I think there is a tremendous dishonesty about that in our society.” An interview with Jeffery Renard Allen. | Guernica
• Same labyrinth, different rats: three recent books take on Oulipo. | Hyperallergic
• The Mary Review will be made by ladies, and read by everyone. | Capital New York
• Beyond Bukowski: Sophie Rachmuhl’s multimedia account of the poetry scene in Los Angeles spans 30 years and encompasses the many communities that contributed to its emergence. | Los Angeles Review of Books
• E-books are allowing publishers in Iran to get around stringent censorship laws, which forbid words like “kiss,” “dance,” and “wine.” | The Guardian
• The Familiar and the novel, as a literary form, are in the most complicated relationship of all time. | NPR
• Buenos Aires has the most bookstores per capita (4,000 people : 1 bookstore); here are the secrets to their success. | Melville Hous
• Restless Books is fundraising to make an instructive, illustrated (and obviously beautiful) edition of Don Quixote, in honor of its 400^th anniversary. | Kickstarter
• And to get you through your Monday: Ken Cosgrove, everyone’s favorite fictional, one-eyed ad man, has broken the fourth wall (what can’t he do?) with the publication of his short story. | The Atlantic

Also on Literary Hub: Dag Solstad is actually Norway’s greatest living writer · Freshly translated Marguerite Duras · Newtonville Books, a love story

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