TOBI'S DESK

Have you ever wondered about the astrological sign of your favorite literary character, or considered how the introduction of astrology might supplement, for example, our reading of Franz Kafka ’s The Metamorphosis ? If so, you’re in luck: Alex Dimitrov and Deborah Lasky , the writers behind Astro Poets , have assembled a handy little list for The Paris Review . (In case you’re wondering, Gregor Samsa is a Cancer.) Image credit: Brockhaus and Rawpixel The post Reading Gregor Samsa’s Chart appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions http://bit.ly/2ZMf5t5

Every week, the editors of  The Paris Review  lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by  signing up for the Redux newsletter . Sketch by Ivy Nicholson, 1956. This week, we’re listening to that old jazz standard “ April in Paris ” and reading Françoise Sagan’s Art of Fiction interview , as well as Zygmunt Haupt’s short story “ In Paris and in Arcadia ” and Charles Baudelaire’s poem “ Parisian Dream .” If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not  subscribe to read the entire archive ? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.   Françoise Sagan, The Art of Fiction No. 15 Issue no. 14 (Autumn 1956) I had read a lot of stories. It seemed to me impossible not to want to write one. Instead of leaving for Chile with a band of gangsters, one stays in Paris and writes a novel. That seem

David Malouf. Photo: Conrad Del Villar. © Conrad Del Villar. There he is, in his fat golden tie, accepting the honor of his lifetime (so far). In his steady, high-pitched voice, David Malouf delivers his Neustadt Lecture at the University of Oklahoma, under the aegis of World Literature Today . He speaks of “the power of language as a means of structuring, interpreting, remaking experience; the need to remap the world so that wherever you happen to be is the center.” Later, he describes himself as “a writer whose immediate world and material happen to be Australian.” Happen to be . In the precise, lapidarian chiselings of Malouf’s prose, this repetition takes on special significance. Happen , as in deed, but also as in happenstance. Something occurs and something is. This is the accepted order. What occurs—in this instance—is Australianness. And here, at this point of deep concurrence, Malouf and I most meaningfully part ways. * Concurrence first. For his Complete Stories , a co

When I read a graphic novel that includes a queer narrative there are a few things that make it stand out to me. I want characters that feel sincere, not typecast. In short, characters I can see some of myself in. In the realm of indie comics, representation has taken great strides. A lot of publishers have taken an initiative to highlight heretofore underrepresented stories of queer women. Here are a few I think you shouldn’t miss: 1. Love and Rockets: Locas Books 1-6 by Jaime Hernandez Love and Rockets is a profound and complex series written and illustrated by Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. The series is daunting to begin, but fear not, Fantagraphics has been kind enough to collect them into bite size chunks. Enter the collected Locas books by Jaime Hernandez. I would be at a loss to discuss what indie comics with queer characters are today without mentioning these books . The narrative revolves around a rich cast of Latin-American characters, all from a place called Hoppers

In 1949, Clarice Lispector found herself in a bit of a funk, despite the effusive acclaim surrounding her first novel, Near to the Wild Heart , six years earlier. After the difficulty she’d faced getting her second novel, The Chandelier , published in 1946, her attempt to find a publisher for her third novel, The Besieged City , was proving no easier. The publisher of The Chandelier had rejected it, and so had many of Rio de Janeiro’s prestigious publishing houses . How was it that an author who had revolutionized Portuguese writing several years earlier, whose debut novel was praised as “the greatest novel a woman has ever written in the Portuguese language” suddenly couldn’t get her name in print? The Besieged City ’s translation into English would be even more arduous—it is only arriving now, in 2019, seventy years after its initial publication and forty-two years after its author’s death. The Besieged City follows Lucrécia, an independent young woman living with her mother in

In 2018, Brittle Paper introduced a Brunel Prize Poems Review series, starting with poems on that year’s shortlist. The series returns for the 2019 Prize. READ: Brunel Prize 2019 Poems Review | Part 1: Jamila Osman & Selina Nwulu READ: Brunel Prize 2019 Poems Review | Part 2: Omotara James & K. Eltinae READ: Brunel Prize 2019 Poems Review | Part 3: Afua […] from Brittle Paper http://bit.ly/2Lf7vnP

In a new essay for Esquire UK, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captures the spirits of Lagos, reflects on living in the mega-city, its people, its cultures. The piece, which appears in the “Travel & Adventure” issue of the men’s lifestyle magazine, is titled “Still Becoming: At Home in Lagos with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.” Read an excerpt […] from Brittle Paper http://bit.ly/2Vtt9sn

Weeks ago, the South African writer Panashe Chigumadzi published an essay in Africa Is a Country, “Why I’m No Longer Talking to Nigerians About Race: On Writers, Empathy and (Black) Solidarity Politics,” which demands an uncomfortable conversation on race, Black, and African solidarity politics. Our #WhyI’mTalkingAboutRace series features responses. The first is by the Nigerian […] from Brittle Paper http://bit.ly/2DEkclD

That was definitely not the reply they had wanted from him but that was honestly all he had for them. Dan finally nodded and rose to his feet with a smile. “Thank you for your time, Senior Miebaka,” he shook Miebaka who scoffed. “Please, just call me Miebaka,” he corrected as he rose to his … Continue reading HAPPY HOLS! (Episode Twelve) → from NaijaStories.com http://bit.ly/2J3iqhv

Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from the likes of Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Ayşegül Savaş, Clarice Lispector,  and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our  most recent book preview . Want to help The Millions keep churning out great books coverage? Then  sign up to be a member  today. Let’s Tell This Story Properly  by  Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi Here’s what  Publishers Weekly  had to say about  Let’s Tell This Story Properly : “Makumbi ( Kintu ) captures the struggles of economic uncertainty and assimilation for Ugandans in Britain across decades in this adept collection. In “Our Allies the Colonies,” Abbey, an immigrant lured to England during WWII by army recruitment posters, fathers a son with a white woman who puts him up for adoption without informing Abbey. In “Manchester Happened,” Nnambassa remembers her difficult immigration to Manchester and the arrival of her 14-year-old sister, Katassi, five

Fredrick knew he needed to act fast after his discussion with Ikem. It was obvious Ikem was thinking of going back to Ugochi, and he wasn’t so certain the kind of reception he is likely to receive. Although, Ugochi had been very emphatic about not getting back together with Ikem, one can never be sure … Continue reading Love Beyond Reason 8 → from NaijaStories.com http://bit.ly/2DGm6Cj

In 2018, Brittle Paper introduced a Brunel Prize Poems Review series, starting with poems on that year’s shortlist. The series returns for the 2019 Prize. READ: Brunel Prize 2019 Poems Review | Part 1: Jamila Osman & Selina Nwulu READ: Brunel Prize 2019 Poems Review | Part 2: Omotara James & K. Eltinae The 2019 Brunel International African Poetry Prize shortlist came […] from Brittle Paper http://bit.ly/2V2P0Hq

In her new poetry collection, Oculus , Sally Wen Mao explores various subjects from Anna May Wong to Wong Kar-wai to personhood to objecthood. Anne A. Cheng interviews Mao for Bomb Magazine , and they discuss how these topics merge in her confessional poems. Sally Wen Mao discusses art’s role in redeeming history and reimagining “lost moments, the feelings never expressed, the secrets never surfaced,” Mao writes. “I think that it’s possible for art to reckon with and mourn this loss even as it imagines or recovers what has been lost. I think it’s possible to simultaneously arrive at both.” The post Sally Wen Mao Reimagines Lost Moments appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions http://bit.ly/2VBnRem

Adonis. Photo: Mariusz Kubik (CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://bit.ly/2FVl0lV). Adonis’s Songs of Mihyar the Damascene is the central book of poems in modern Arabic literature. Published in 1961, its status in Arabic is comparable to The Waste Land in English or Duino Elegies  in German. (Adonis collaborated on a translation of Eliot’s long poem while writing Mihyar ). Like those works of European high modernism, Adonis’s collection is poetry of large and explicit ambitions. It evokes classical, Koranic, and Biblical sources on almost every page, even when announcing its own originality. It is a work of visionary exultation and powerful melancholy. It imagines a world of blight and barrenness and picks through the ruins for hints of resurrection. At the heart of Adonis’s book is the grandly inscrutable figure of Mihyar. “He has no ancestors, his roots are in his footsteps,” intones the opening “Psalm.” The myth of a hero who emerges from his own self-conception is central to Mihyar’s persona

Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi was awarded the 2019 PEN/Faulkner Prize for her novel, Call Me Zebra . This year’s judges, Percival Everett , Ernesto Quiñonez , and Joy Williams , said of the winning title: “Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi’s Call Me Zebra is a library within a library, a Borges-esque labyrinth of references from all cultures and all walks of life. In today’s visual Netflix world, Ms. Van der Vliet Oloomi ’ s novel performs at the highest of levels in accomplishing only what the written novel can show us.” (For more, check out our review of Call Me Zebra .) The prize—which selects the best works by American citizens published in the last calendar year—has the distinction of being America’s largest peer-juried contest for fiction. The award brings with it a $15,000 prize for the winner, and $5,000 for each of the four finalists. The post Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi Wins 2019 PEN/Faulkner Prize appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions http://bit.ly/2

  As a painter, Chris Rush is preoccupied with how his subjects interact with light. Like the air, light is a natural phenomenon, but when manipulated, it can reveal hidden layers and tell complicated stories. As a memoirist, Rush has a similar ability: to wrap us into his world and flip us on our heads. The Light Years begins when Rush is a wide-eyed, church-going New Jersey boy. He’s not yet discovered who he is, though he knows he likes weird art and wearing flashy capes around the neighborhood. Eventually, due to tensions with his parents, he is sent to live with his older, hippie sister in San Francisco, where he discovers the counterculture and psychedelics of the 1970s. There, he is introduced to a seductive drug dealer. The story goes from New Jersey to San Francisco to a stash house in the desert of Southern Arizona. The particulars seem too farfetched to be true, but believe me: it’s all true. Rush and I spoke about how Catholicism shaped our childhoods and influenced ou