Awards abound! The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to poet Louise Glück this week. The committee chose Glück, who has also won the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award, “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” Glück is the first American woman to win the award since Toni Morrison 27 years ago, and only the 16th woman of the 117 winners, overall. New to Glück and want to know where to start with her work? Poet Fiona Sampson writes about Gluck’s work and chooses some of her favorite poems for The Guardian.
In other award news, the MacArthur Foundation announced the 21 recipients of its fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant.” In addition to an evolutionary geneticist, a property law scholar, and a documentary filmmaker, this year’s grantees also included quite a few names from the literary world: authors, Jacqueline Woodson, Cristina Rivera Garza, Fred Moten, N. K. Jemisin, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and playwright Larissa FastHorse. Learn more about all of the fellows here.
Not an award, but a really big deal nonetheless: Kevin Young, currently cultural director of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center and poetry editor of the New Yorker, has been named the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Per the Washington Post, during his time at the Schomburg, “Young created a Black Liberation Reading List with 95 books and coordinated programs. He also brought the Harlem-based archives of Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin, Sonny Rollins, Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee to the center as part of “Home to Harlem,” a program that focuses on how artists shaped, and were shaped by, the neighborhood.”
Congratulations are also in order for two Catalyst authors. Yewande Omotoso, author of Bom Boy, has a new book set for release in 2021. An Unusual Grief, will be published by our friends at Cassava Republic, and is “a poignant tale of one woman’s efforts to come to terms with the death of her estranged daughter.” Yewande will also be part of the soon-to-be released anthology Joburg Noir, “a collection of writings about memories, legends, loss, jokes, stories, myths and experiences by twenty-two gifted and versatile authors in South Africa. The collection also includes Sifiso Mzobe, author of the forthcoming Young Blood (coming January 2021). You can read an excerpt from one of the stories featured in Joburg Noir here.
“You have a story to tell, and you start telling in the best way possible. I think it’s simply a matter of the fact that if you’re trying to present the life of a character, you have a line that is the past present and the future. And anywhere along that line, you can pick out something in order to tell the reader what the character is about.” Great conversation between authors Kaitlyn Greenidge and Edward P. Jones.
The election is just around the corner. The New York Public Library has a reading list of books for kids, teens, and adults that will help us put context to the issues, histories, and figures who have shaped political discourse through the years.
“How does it feel to engage with a national uprising beyond the territorial borders of the nation? What connects you? What impedes connection? Perhaps most importantly, what is at stake?” Fascinating interview at Africa is a Country with Bentley Brown, the director of Revolution from Afar, a new documentary exploring the perspectives of Sudanese-American artists and how they bring activism to their art.
In celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the Seattle Times has a list of seven audiobooks by Indigenous authors. School Library Journal also has a great article by Cynthia Leitich Smith and Traci Sorell on the diversity of Native writing, and how “through an authentic artistic experience, [readers] connect with a narrative that makes them care enough to keep turning pages.”
And finally, in more Catalyst news: make sure to visit CrimeReads to read an excerpt from The Farm, the recently released thriller by Max Annas, translated by Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds.
