It’s a fairly quiet week. This is partly because here in the US we’re in the last throes of summer, when the pace slows down just a bit, and everyone soaks up the last bit of summer fun they can. The other part is that I was on a very long vacation, and leaving the vacation world and coming back to the book world has been, let’s say, not the easiest transition. So this is a light load, but still full of exciting news.
Hot from the Press
Another great review for All Rise! This time, from one of our favorite places— the library! Kate Brittian, the Teen Librarian at the Wilson County Public Library in North Carolina, reviewed All Rise as part of the library’s weekly Teen Book Review.
Mark your calendars for the Windham-Campbell Festival, Monday, September 19 through Thursday, September 22. Current and past Windham-Campbell Prize recipients head to Yale University for a slate of literary programming. We’re still spinning at the news of Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s award! At her event at the festival, “Zimbabwe in Fiction,” Siphiwe will be conversation with Yale professor, with Stephanie Newell about the ways her life and fiction engage with the seismic cultural changes that have taken place in Zimbabwe since the 1970s. You can find the full schedule here.
In Other News
As much as we love libraries and librarians here, the reality is that it’s really tough for them right now. They’ve been defunded, threatened, and harassed. And books are being banned across the nation. As we head into September and Banned Book Week (September 18 – 24), let’s all do what we can to support these institutions. And remember, it’s not all bad news! Here’s some stories of people fighting for change, from teens to educators, and here are some ways you can join the fight.
Getting a book published is hard. Author Jessamine Chan takes us “behind the scenes to see how a book is born — the winding path it takes, the many hands that touch it, the near-misses and the lucky breaks that help determine its fate.”
Jared Kushner is fine. You hear that? he’s fine! He’s definitely not bothered at all.
A bit on the history of book blurbs. True story: Once I reached out to an author for a blurb, but typed “blub” in the subject line. I am currently writing this from the afterlife. Praises be to the author who just replied like nothing even happened. That’s called class.
A beautiful remembrance fitting of the beautiful person it honors. Eileen Myles on Bobby Byrd: “I won’t be me in the same way anymore I think and that’s just the way it is when you lose a friend. Bobby Byrd mattered.” Yes. Yes, he did.
#ReadingAfrica News
We want you to read African lit all year long, not just during our #ReadingAfrica Week celebration (December 4-10, thanks for asking) Here’s some news from the world of African literature.
You can pre-order this year’s Caine Prize anthology, titled A Mind to Silence and Other Stories. We think it’s an amazing collection, but we’re biased as Idza Luhumyo, this year’s Caine Prize winner, was published in our release Disruption: New Short Fiction in Africa, co-published with Short Story Day Africa.
A great piece by Pritika Pradhan on The Radical Books Collective: “As a specialist in African literatures, Shringarpure witnessed the disproportionate, interlinked power of editors, agents, and reviewers in mainstream publishing, which compresses the diverse literatures of the continent’s 54 countries into the single category of African literature, and which “cannot accommodate anything that is foreign to the industry’s perception of the Western reader.”
The wind scales of the Asante Empire
“The idea that a writer represents, I resist,” he said. “I represent me. I represent me in terms of what I think and what I am, what concerns me, what I want to write about.” Nobel Prize winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah on charting his on path.
And finally…
The Booker Prize winner will be announced on September 6, which doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to read all of the longlisted books. Lucky for you, there’s a quiz to figure out which one you should start with (I got Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley, the youngest-ever Booker nominee )
