LitHub Daily: May 25, 2016

TODAY: In 1911, Thomas Mann visits the Lido in Venice and gets the idea for his novella Death in Venice. 

• Lit Hub celebrates translation month: Do Americans hate foreign fiction? Anjali Enjeti on the serious lack of translated literature in America; Infinite Jest around the world: translating David Foster Wallace’s 1,000 page mega-novel; Adapting the Tibetan Book of the Dead; On translating Stoner in Japan and the determined translator who worked until the moment he died; 10 Chinese women whose writing should be translated; A newly translated story by Alexander Pushkin. | Literary Hub
• Garth Greenwell and Garrard Conley make their final stop on their anti-HB2 book tour and read at Malaprops Boosktore. | Literary Hub
• “Like a 21st-century version of Humbert’s nemesis, Clare Quilty, who pursued Humbert and Lolita across the country, I went west to chase Nabokov chasing butterflies and to piece together the plot of his most popular novel.” Tracing the route of Nabokov’s road trip across America. | The New York Times
• On Don DeLillo’s later fiction, which is “rich, chewy and best consumed in small mouthfuls.” | The Guardian
• On writers leaning into ambiguous white spaces and dreams of writing great anal-sex scenes: Jonathan Lee interviews Stephanie Danler. | The Paris Review
• Sarah Nicole Prickett and Gary Indiana discuss LA’s more glamorous secrets, people who read Atlas Shrugged when they’re twelve, and sexy serial killers. | Bookforum
• “Once upon a time, there was a man whose therapist thought it would be a good idea for the man to work through some stuff by telling a story about that stuff.” A short story by Charles Yu. | The New Yorker
• Rufi Thorpe on addictive characters, our teen selves, and the writing advice she received from Ann Beattie. | Electric Literature
• “Each story will tell me how it wants to be told.” MariNaomi on her graphic memoir Turning Japanese. | Broadly
• Yellow is the new black: On the rise of “brighter, bolder” book covers, for which Amazon may be (is probably) to blame. | Wall Street Journal

Also on Literary Hub: Malcolm Mackay on how to write fully-formed characters in fiction · On showman, salesman, and major bullshitter Donald Trump · A new poem by Cole Swenson · A quest: from Karan Bajaj’s The Yoga of Max’s Discontent

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