Amid news of China’s decision to “muzzle the media” after last month’s train disaster, The New York Times ran a profile of author Chan Koonchung, whose Orwellian novel The Fat Years has been banned in China for its fictional – yet eerily accurate – portrait of life under authoritarian rule. Already an underground sensation in China, a translation of the novel will be published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in January. Read the backstory here.
Read more ›Mark Richard has won a 2012 Pushcart Prize for House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer’s Journey Home, his otherworldly memoir of growing up in the American South. “I didn’t think there was anything unusual about my life. I didn’t think it was worth examination,” he recently told USC Dornsife Magazine. “Then I started writing, and it came to this place, House of Prayer No. 2.”
Read more ›Margaret Atwood answered questions about her Booker prize-winning novel The Blind Assassin in a live chat Tuesday afternoon. Who knew that so much could be explained in 140 characters or less? The Atlantic has the highlights.
Read more ›Why is Margaret Atwood such an impressive author? Dave Astor at The Huffington Post counts the reasons why Atwood’s books continue to resonate.
Read more ›“A page-turner and a disconcerting portrayal of the randomness of life and the choices we make. Strangely uplifting, The Upright Piano Player is guaranteed to keep you riveted.”
–Jack Gillard, Nicola’s Books, Ann Arbor, MI
Graduation season is upon us, and what better gift for those who are finishing high school or college than a copy of beloved storyteller Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life, a celebration of the books and writers that have shaped his life?
Read more ›“Tense, evocative and moving. Wallner expertly depicts the dreariness, paranoia and intrigue of the Soviet Union in the early 1970s, while simultaneously crafting a deep, heartfelt love story peopled by fully realized characters facing difficult situations, forced to act without a clear-cut notion of right and wrong.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Congratulations to Valerie Martin, who is among the nine fiction writers awarded a 2011 grant by the Guggenheim Foundation! Click here to see the complete list of Fellows.
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