Márquez overtakes Cervantes as most translated Spanish-language writer
Gabriel García Márquez in 1990 in Paris, France. His brand of magic realism has been more popular this century with readers in 10 languages than the idealism of Cervantes’ hero Don Quixote. The solitary denizens of Macondo appear to have proved too much for a famously insane knight errant, according to research that shows Gabriel […]
Salman Rushdie: “I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim.”
“I’ve always tried very hard not to adopt the role of a victim.” Salman Rushdie before the attack, with friend Abbas Raza in Brixen, in the Italian Alps. It was the worst Valentine’s Day present ever: on 14 February 1989, the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini called for the novelist Salman Rushdie‘s death. The author’s crime? […]
Marcel Proust on What Writing Is
Marcel Proust died of pneumonia at fifty-one, in Paris, on November 18th, and last year was the centenary of his death. Since I first read “ In Search of Lost Time,” his immense and unique autobiographical novel, a long passage about what writing is—from “ Time Regained,” the seventh and last volume—has stayed with me. […]
Kathie Giorgio’s Creative Space for Writers Everywhere
As a long-time writer and educator, Kathie Giorgio is no stranger to the emotional impact words can have. The importance of a good piece of writing and how a story can uplift, inspire, and change one’s life is not lost on her, as she uses her talent for the best possible task: to share it […]
A Century On, the Search for the Real Franz Kafka Continues
The first time Franz Kafka’s voice entered my head, I was 15. Two new friends I’d made through our shared interest in literature had introduced me to his fiction, and we took turns reading the Willa and Edwin Muir translations to each other in the high school library. I distinctly recall the three of us […]
My 8,000-mile writer’s retreat: A worthy and welcome return to creativity
Larry Burns is a writer and artist. Using the persona mylarr, his current work, “Taking Shelter In…,” is part of a group show, “The 52 Project,” at the Riverside Art Museum. It is set to run through April 30. I’ve never been on a writer’s retreat. As a creative person, I’ve tried countless tactics to […]
Remembering Paul La Farge, Writer and Friend
Paul La Farge and I used to roam up and down the mid-Hudson Valley looking for a new place to have a bite or a tipple. One overcast day, we pulled up to a bar that had a reputation for the roughness of its clientele. We could see the grizzled men within and the equally […]
Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker and writing outside the constraints of time
Robert Gilhooly / Alamy Anna Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. When the 2022 Booker shortlist was announced in September, 87-year-old Alan Garner was highlighted as the oldest-ever […]
Carmen Callil, pioneering champion of female writers, dies aged 84
‘I’m just not a collective, what-a-nice-book-you-want-me-to-publish, we’re-all-sisters-under-the-skin kind of person’ … Carmen Callil. Carmen Callil, the publisher and writer who championed female writers and transformed the canon of English literature, has died of leukemia in London on Monday aged 84. The news was confirmed by her agent. Callil began as a campaigning outsider, founding the […]
Writing poems and avoiding wasps on the porch
Johnny Bender is past board president of Inlandia Institute, a longtime poet and retired journalist. Photographed on Mar. 07, 2012. (File photo by Michael Leone, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) By Johnny Bender | Contributing writer When I write poems or stories, I like to sit alone on the front porch in the cool morning, drinking coffee and […]