Isak

The First Line of The Stranger

Albert Camus's strange little novel bears an evocative and famous first line: "Aujourd’hui, maman est morte.” Ryan Bloom takes a look at how various translators have rendered the sentence into English in The New Yorker, with particular attention two the two decisions that they seem to keep getting wrong. One of them stretches back to the original English translation:

Stuart Gilbert, a British scholar and a friend of James Joyce, was the first person to attempt Camus’s “L’Étranger” in English. In 1946, Gilbert translated the book’s title as “The Outsider” and rendered the first line as “Mother died today.” Simple, succinct, and incorrect.

In 1982, both Joseph Laredo and Kate Griffith produced new translations of “L’Étranger,” each opting for Gilbert’s revised title, “The Stranger,” but preserving his first line. “Mother died today” remained, and it wasn’t until 1988 that the line saw a single word changed. It was then that American translator and poet Matthew Ward reverted “Mother” back to Maman. One word? What’s the big deal? A large part of how we view and—alongside the novel’s court—ultimately judge Meursault lies in our perception of his relationship with his mother. We condemn or set him free based not on the crime he commits but on our assessment of him as a person. Does he love his mother? Or is he cold toward her, uncaring, even?

First impressions matter, and, for forty-two years, the way that American readers were introduced to Meursault was through the detached formality of his statement: “Mother died today.” There is little warmth, little bond or closeness or love in “Mother,” which is a static, archetypal term, not the sort of thing we use for a living, breathing being with whom we have close relations. To do so would be like calling the family dog “Dog” or a husband “Husband.” The word forces us to see Meursault as distant from the woman who bore him.

Billy's Caine Prize Shortlist

Wonderful news: Billy Kahora is a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Billy is the managing editor of Kwani?, which is where I worked with him (I wrote a bit about what it was like in the magazine that published last year's Caine Prize winner). In the above photo, we're at Nairobi Java House, and he's wearing a shirt that reads: "It's not that I forget... it's that I just don't care!" Rarely have I seen a slogan so perfectly suit a personality: Billy has little patience for nonsense, preferring to focus his incredibly intelligent mind and bemused humor on fiction. He is an excellent reader and one of the hardest-working writers I know. Billy's nominated for "Urban Zoning," a story published in McSweeney's. Here is the full list of finalists, culled from 122 entries from (only!) 14 countries, with links to download the stories (PDF):

• Rotimi Babatunde (Nigeria): 'Bombay's Republic' from 'Mirabilia Review' 
• Billy Kahora (Kenya): 'Urban Zoning' from 'McSweeney's'
• Stanley Kenani (Malawi): 'Love on Trial' from 'For Honour and Other Stories' published by eKhaya/Random House Struik 
• Melissa Tandiwe Myambo (Zimbabwe): 'La Salle de Départ' from 'Prick of the Spindle' 
• Constance Myburgh (South Africa): 'Hunter Emmanuel' from 'Jungle Jim'

The winner will be announced on 2 July and receive a £10,000 prize. The Caine Prize has seen some change in leadership recently: Nigerian novelist Ben Okri was announced last week as its new vice president and Lizzy Attree is in her first year as administrator.

Kwani? itself owes something to the Caine Prize: it was founded in the wake of Binyavanga Wainana's win in 2002. Billy Kahora is the author of The True Story of David Munyakei, and his writing has appeared in Granta, Chimurenga and Vanity Fair. He is a judge for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and received his M.Sc. in creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. Billy is a past resident of the University of Iowa's amazing International Writing Program. His novel-in-process is on Juba, South Sudan.

Literary & Media Indulgences: 4/28/2012

 

-- Vogue published a glowing profile of Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad in March 2011 --  just before the regime began its (ongoing) brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.The 3,200-word profile praised al-Assad for being "glamorous, young, and very chic," and Vogue has gone to great lengths to make it disappear. It refuses to even talk about it.

-- Death and the Library.

-- Theodore Dreiser was thisclose to being a passenger on the Titanic.

-- Vica Miller loves the fiction of Ludmila Ultiskaya.

-- Novels are not the only books: Audrey Bilger went looking for Jeannette Winterson in London.

-- Planned Parenthood has a new Tumblr: "Ask us anything. No judgments."

-- Journalists, take note: this is a fearfully common reporting error. Via Salon.

-- Katha Pollitt is dead-on in her column in The Nation: "When performed by married women in their own homes, domestic labor is work—difficult, sacred, noble work. Ann says Mitt called it more important work than his own, which does make you wonder why he didn’t stay home with the boys himself. When performed for pay, however, this supremely important, difficult job becomes low-wage labor that almost anyone can do—teenagers, elderly women, even despised illegal immigrants. But here’s the real magic: when performed by low-income single mothers in their own homes, those same exact tasks—changing diapers, going to the playground and the store, making dinner, washing the dishes, giving a bath—are not only not work; they are idleness itself."

-- Deadline Detroit, a new online publication, debuted with a soft launch this week. Tagline: "Homegrown Media Revolution."

-- "Two Years of Longform: What the Hell Did We Just Read?" In brief: sex, murder, and sad sports stories.

-- Kwani? has launched a one-off literary prize as it searches for outsanding African novels to publish. "The work should be in English or variations of English ('Englishes')..."

-- Ben Okri is now the vice-president of the Caine Prize.

-- How are the novels of Alain Mabanckou, the Congolese novelist who writes in French, faring in English translation in the U.S.? Pretty well, it seems.

-- The Port Huron Statement at 50: a Boston Review forum with contributions from Tom Hayden (fellow alum of The Michigan Daily), Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dorn, and others.

-- "No Ordinary Place: Writers and Writing in Occupied Palestine."

-- "Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry." Via The New York Times. And what have you done today, hmmm?

-- Sandra Fluke is interviewed in Marie Claire.

-- The new issue of Foreign Policy is triggering lots of hot conversation. It is "The Sex Issue," by which it means an issue that examines the differing politics of being men and being women.

-- Qatari author Amal al-Malki talks with al-Jazeera about how the Arab Spring has failed to fight for gender equality.

-- Wendell Berry is my hero too.

-- Poet Rose McLarney is featured in Orion's "the place where I write" series. You must check out McLarney's new book.

-- "Bullying the Nuns." Via the New York Review of Books. I swear to goodness, there are few things that inspire me more than radical nuns. See also: "Vatican Reprimends U.S. Nuns and Plans Changes."

-- Steven Weinberg is thinking a lot about the crisis of big science.

-- NPR on the new wave of legislation -- in Tennessee, of all places, site of the Scopes trial -- that is undercutting the teaching of evolution and climate change.

-- The University of Pittsburgh suspends admissions to its graduate programs in classics, German, and religious studies. All in response to state funding cuts.

-- Here's what it looks like when official censors get involved with an international book fair.

-- Dan Chaon: "The question for the professional fiction writer is how far outside your own world you can reach."

-- In Guernica, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz is interviewed about Lorca, American directors, and the cross he won’t bear.

-- Twenty years after Rodney King, this is South L.A.

-- Behold: a primer on the anti-trust lawsuit targeting (quite mistakenly, I believe) publishers.

-- You can now submit to the wonderful Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Past winners include Lori Ostlund, Ha Jin, and Antonya Nelson.

-- Novellas -- and Melville House's wonderful "Art of the Novella" series -- get love from The Atlantic, which calls the form "the original #longread."

-- Michael Kimball in conversation with Sheila Heti.

-- So much for the notion that left-handed people are precociously creative.

-- E.O. Wilson on "the origins of the arts."

-- A Scottish author of crime novels is compelled to change her name from "Shona MacLean" to "S.G. MacLean" in order to better appeal to male readers. I wrote about this sad and long tradition (see: E. Nesbit, J.K. Rowling, Isak Dinesen, P.D. James, George Eliot, George Sands, James Tiptree, Jr. ...)  before.

-- Wow: here is the first English translation of only extant interview with poet César Vallejo. It had been lost for more than four decades. Via The Literary Saloon.

-- The Rumpus interviews the inimitable Elif Batuman, most particularly about the Mike Daisey debacle.

-- Judith Thurman profiles Alison Bechdel in The New Yorker.

-- Know a wonderful young writer? Invite them to submit to the One Teen Story Fiction Contest.

-- The Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, the Open Letter version translated by Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson, is a finalist for the Rossica Translation Award. I loved the book a whole lot.

-- Can't we just love them both? The Millions hosts a forum on "who's greater: Tolstoy or Dostoevsky?" I hate false debates like that, but, immersed as I am in re-reading The Brothers Karamazov, I simply can't resist.

-- Adam Thirlwell (who is my beloved) writes about "genocide and the fine arts" in The New Republic: "Ever since Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the grand and modern wish has been for a separation of the aesthetic and the ethical."

 

About the Image: A rendition of the cover of Pinocchio by Alan Hynes.

Speaking: Nadifa Mohamed

 

To start at the beginning of Somali literature in English, or at least what appears to be the start, we have to go back to 1928 and a anarchist-Tolstoyan commune in the rural English Cotswolds, where Ibrahim Ismaa'il recited his autobiography to his Belgian friend (and perhaps lover) Eugene Gaspard Marin. This remarkable document was unearthed by academic and Ethiopia specialist Richard Pankhurst, whose equally remarkable suffragette mother Sylvia had been close to Marin, and published decades later in academic journals, most notably the Rome-based Africa. In Marin's preface he minimizes his role in the autobiography, stating "though his English had been slightly corrected, not a thought has been added or altered to make [Ismaa'il's] narrative more exciting or more to the taste of the European public."

A sense that what the usually Western audience is reading is authentic, true, and unflinchingly real is a recurring demand on literature by non-Western writers, but the account Ismaa'il provides is extraordinarily magical and incredibly flamboyant. The 41-page autobiography of the approximately 30-year-old includes his time as a nomad boy caught up in Mohamed Abdullah Hassan's rebellion against the British, a solo journey to Yemen, a brief stint of enslavement at the hands of Arab pirates, 16 months on a British man-of-war during the First World War, and then hand-to-hand fighting in the 1919 Cardiff race riots. It was my father's story only written nearly a century earlier and I had to read it with regular breaks to still my beating heart. The same implausible twists of fate, the humour, and the picaresqueness of Ismaa'il's story reminded me of The Tin Drum and Midnight's Children.

 

-- Nadifa Mohamed writing about Somali literature in the new issue of Asymptote

 

Nadifa Mohamed is a Somali author from Hargeisa who moved with her merchant marine father to London when she was a child. Her debut novel, Black Mamba Boy, was published in 2010 and nominated for the Orange Prize, the Guardian First Book Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and several other honors. She is interviewed here about the book, and cites as her literary role models Ahmadou Kourourma (for his ability to "combine African forms of storytelling with European"), Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy, Claude McKay, and Dylan Thomas. Mohamed studied history and politics at Oxford University, and is now at work on a novel about Somalia's civil war. Last month, Mohamed wrote an article about "the way to a new Somalia" -- and discussed the International Book Festival that she will be attending in Somaliland this summer. The theme is "the future."

 

Image Credit: The Guardian

Your Annotated Guide to the Pulitzers: 2012 Journalism Edition

In full geek-mode, I waited with bated breath for today's announcement. And the Pulitzer Prizes did not disappoint: on both the arts and journalism ends, there were high-five wins, bewildering lapses, and all kinds of conversation fodder. Altogether, nearly all the named winners of Pulitzer this year were men (17, compared to 5 women), and art and journalism that wrestled with the behind-the-scenes stories of war seemed get particular attention.

See also my annotated guide to the Pulitzers in art and literature.

 

 

  PUBLIC SERVICE - The Philadelphia Inquirer 
FINALISTS: The Miami Herald for its exposure of deadly abuses and lax state oversight in Florida’s assisted-living facilities for the elderly and mentally ill that resulted in the closure of dangerous homes, punishment of violators and creation of tougher laws and regulations; and The New York Times for the work of Danny Hakim and Russ Buettner that revealed rapes, beatings and more than 1,200 unexplained deaths over the past decade of developmentally disabled people in New York State group homes, leading to removal of two top officials, movement to fire 130 employees and passage of remedial laws.

What a nice win for an excellent newspaper going through a brutal year. The Philadelphia Inquirer wins for its searing seven-part series on school violence. The Pulitzer citation particularly celebrates how the newspaper tells the story "using powerful print narratives and videos to illuminate crimes committed by children against children and to stir reforms to improve safety for teachers and students." The award is the 19th Pulitzer Prize for the 183-year-old newspaper and its first since 1997, according to the Inquirer. The reporting team conducted more than 300 interviews, and created a database to analyze more than 30,000 serious incidents in schools over the last five years, including assaults, robberies, and rapes. The team also examined state and district data on intervention, poring over police reports, court records, security videos, and more. A top-notch investigation.

See:

• The Philadelphia Inquirer - "Assault on Learning"
• The Miami Herald - "Neglected to Death"
• The New York Times - "Abused and Used" (Editor's note: I remember reading this one when it came out: it's outstanding journalism.)

 

 

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING - The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News Staff
FINALISTS: The Arizona Republic Staff, Phoenix, for its comprehensive coverage of the mass shooting that killed six and wounded 13, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, an exemplary use of journalistic tools, from Twitter to video to written reports and features, to tell an unfolding story; and the Staff of the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, for its energetic coverage of 27 days of around-the-clock protests in the State Capitol over collective bargaining rights, using an array of journalistic tools to capture one breaking development after another.

The Alabama newspaper wins for its "enterprising coverage of a deadly tornado, using social media as well as traditional reporting to provide real-time updates, help locate missing people and produce in-depth print accounts even after power disruption forced the paper to publish at another plant 50 miles away." That's the staff celebrating, above. Here is how the paper itself describes its work:

The focus of the News' entry highlighted the coverage from the day of the storm, including a Twitter feed that provided real time updates to residents, emergency personnel and readers around the world, photo galleries and video of the aftermath and an online bulletin board for people seeking residents in the path of the storm.

Coverage in the April 28 edition of the newspaper included first person staff accounts from around the city and official reaction, while coverage from April 29 looked at early security and recovery. Reports were constantly changing following the storm and the newspaper staff, many who had heavy damage to their homes reacted to cover the changes.

The image on the frontpage of the News' April 28 edition became iconic.

See:

•  The Tuscaloosa News - "Tornado Deadliest in Country"
• Arizona Republic - "Arizona Congresswoman Giffords Shot; Doctors 'Optimistic' About Recovery Chances"
• The Wisconsin State Journal - Interactive Timeline of the 2011 Walker Protests

 

 

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING -  Michael J. Berens and Ken Armstrong of The Seattle Times AND Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley of the Associated Press
FINALIST: Gary Marx and David Jackson of the Chicago Tribune for their exposure of a neglectful state justice system that allowed dozens of brutal criminals to evade punishment by fleeing the country, sparking moves for corrective change.

Two winners! (Though this has to feel like a bit of a burn for the Chicago team here.) The Seattle crew wins for its investigation "of how a little known governmental body in Washington State moved vulnerable patients from safer pain-control medication to methadone, a cheaper but more dangerous drug, coverage that prompted statewide health warnings." And the AP team wins for a different subject entirely: they spotlighted "the New York Police Department’s clandestine spying program that monitored daily life in Muslim communities, resulting in congressional calls for a federal investigation, and a debate over the proper role of domestic intelligence gathering." Both are multi-part investigations that take a wide lens. The above image is from the Seattle Times series.

See:

• Seattle Times - "Methadone and the Politics of Pain"
• Associated Press - Probe into NYPD Intelligence Operations
• Chicago Tribune - "Across the Border, Beyond the Law"

 

 

EXPLANATORY REPORTING -  David Kocieniewski of The New York Times
FINALISTS:  Tom Frank of USA Today for his sharply focused exploration of inflated pensions for state and local employees, enhancing stories with graphic material to show how state legislators pump up retirement benefits in creative but unconscionable ways; and The Wall Street Journal Staff for its tenacious exploration of how personal information is harvested from the cellphones and computers of unsuspecting Americans by corporations and public officials in a largely unmonitored realm of modern life.

Kocieniewski wins for "his lucid series that penetrated a legal thicket to explain how the nation’s wealthiest citizens and corporations often exploited loopholes and avoided taxes." I can't imagine much more important explanatory reporting right now. The business reporter spent a year, at least, to digging out the provisions and techniques that keep taxes very, very low for the very, very wealthy. The above images is from this series: it pictures Ronald S. Lauder, who is worth $3.1 billion, and the owner of that Klimt painting. Aside: This is the second year in a row that the Wall Street Journal has been a finalist in this category.

See:

• The New York Times: "But Nobody Pays That"
• USA Today: "How State Lawmakers Pump Up Pensions In Ways You Can't"
• Wall Street Journal: "What They Know" (Editor's note: this investigation blew my mind when it came out.)

 

 

  LOCAL REPORTING - Sara Ganim and members of The Patriot-News Staff
FINALISTS: Staff of California Watch, founded by the Center for Investigative Reporting, Berkeley, for its rigorous probe of deficient earthquake protection in the construction of public schools across the state, telling the story with words, graphics, videos and other tools; and A.M. Sheehan and Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling of the Advertiser Democrat, Norway, Maine, a weekly, for their tenacious exposure of disgraceful conditions in federally-supported housing in a small rural community that, within hours, triggered a state investigation.

Zero surprise here, and lots of joy: Sara Ganim, the 24-year-old beat reporter, wins "for courageously revealing and adeptly covering the explosive Penn State sex scandal involving former football coach Jerry Sandusky." She did extraordinary work, and now she's the second-youngest person to ever win a Pulitzer. Poyner has her story behind the story, revealing how Ganim covered this before it was a national headline-driver. Even Deadspin un-snarkily gives her props. And here is the Patriot-News, telling how it all went down. This is the first Pulitzer for the central Pennsylvania newspaper. Pictured above is Ganim in her newsroom, learning of her win. Sara Ganim is my hero.

See:

• The Patriot-News: Sara Ganim's bylines
  
• California Watch: "On Shaky Ground"
• Advertiser-Democrat: "Slumlords, Shoddy Oversight, Tax Dollars ... Living in Section 8"

 

 

 

 NATIONAL REPORTING -  David Wood of The Huffington Post
FINALISTS: Jeff Donn of the Associated Press for his diligent exposure of federal regulators easing or neglecting to enforce safety standards as aging nuclear power plants exceed their original life spans, with interactive data and videos used to drive home the findings; and Jessica Silver-Greenberg of The Wall Street Journal for her compelling examination of aggressive debt collectors whose often questionable tactics, profitable but largely unseen by the public, vexed borrowers hard hit by the nation’s financial crisis.

Woods takes the cake "for his riveting exploration of the physical and emotional challenges facing American soldiers severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan during a decade of war." It was a ten-part series from Woods, who holds the mantle of senior military correspondent for the site. Woods is a Quaker and a former conscientious objector.

See:

• The Huffington Post: "Beyond the Battlefield"
• Associated Press: "Aging Nukes"

 

 

 

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING -  Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times
FINALISTS: The New York Times Staff for its powerful exploration of serious mistakes concealed by authorities in Japan after a tsunami and earthquake devastated the nation, and caused a nuclear disaster; and the Thomson Reuters Staff for its well-crafted reports on the momentous revolution in Libya that went beyond battlefield dispatches to tell the wider story of discontent, conflict and the role of outside powers.

Gettleman is based in Nairobi as the East Africa bureau chief, and I've been following his work closely for some time. It's very good. The Pulitzer citation chooses to honor "his vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa, a neglected but increasingly strategic part of the world." To be honest, "neglected" seems a bit of a stretch here -- East Africa gets a lot of media attention, as well it should. It buzzes with journalists, both for local and foreign media, and all kinds of things are happening there. All the same, Gettleman's reporting is continually well done, and I'm glad to see him honored. Pictured above is a Somali woman and child (why didn't the photographer ask for their names??) in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, which of course made a lot of headlines last year.

See:

• The New York Times: Jeffrey Gettleman's bylines (Pulitzer entries are highlighted)

 

 

 

FEATURE WRITING -  Eli Sanders of The Stranger, a Seattle (Wash.) weekly
FINALISTS: John Branch of The New York Times for his deeply reported story of Derek Boogaard, a professional hockey player valued for his brawling, whose tragic story shed light on a popular sport’s disturbing embrace of potentially brain-damaging violence; and Corinne Reilly of The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, for her inspiring stories that bring the reader side-by-side with the medical professionals seeking to save the lives of gravely injured American soldiers at a combat hospital in Afghanistan.

Shortly after Sanders' win came through, The Stranger went offline -- overwhelmed, it seems, by the huge traffic stream that suddenly poured onto it. Sanders' cover feature (see above) for an alt-weekly (!!!) is praised by the Pulitzer jury as a "haunting story of a woman who survived a brutal attack that took the life of her partner, using the woman’s brave courtroom testimony and the details of the crime to construct a moving narrative."

See:

• The Stranger: "The Bravest Woman in Seattle"

 

 

 COMMENTARY -  Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune
FINALISTS: Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times for his valorous columns that transport readers into dangerous international scenes, from Egypt to Kenya to Cambodia, often focusing on the disenfranchised and always providing insight; and Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times for his engaging commentary on death and dying, marked by pieces on his own father’s rapid physical and mental decline, that stir readers to address end-of-life questions.

Mary Shmich beats off her heavyweight competition and wins the Pulitzer for "her wide range of down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city." Last year, she was a finalist who lost out to David Leonhardt. The Georgia native first penned her Tribune column in 1992 -- she celebrates her twentieth anniversary next week, in fact. Pictured above, Mary addresses the newsroom during the Tribune's celebration of her win.

See:

• Chicago Tribune: Columns by Mary Schmich. Here are her Pulitizer-winning ones.
• New York Times: Columns by Nicholas Kristof
• Los Angeles Times: Columns by Steve Lopez

 

 

CRITICISM -  Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe
FINALISTS: Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post for his ambitious and insightful cultural criticism, taking on topical events from the uprisings in Egypt to the dedication of the Ground Zero memorial, causing readers to reflect on the world around them; and Tobi Tobias for work appearing on ArtsJournal.com that reveals passion as well as deep historical knowledge of dance, her well-expressed arguments coming from the heart as well as the head.

Second criticism Pulitzer in a row for The Boston Globe! Wesley Morris, pictured above as Globe editor Marty Baron (left) congratulates him, wins for "his smart, inventive film criticism, distinguished by pinpoint prose and an easy traverse between the art house and the big-screen box office." Morris has been on staff at the Globe since 2002. Here is how the Globe tells its Pulitzer story. This is the 22nd Pulitzer Prize for the newspaper.

See:

• Boston Globe - Collection of reviews by Wesley Morris (Pulitzer entries are highlighted)
• The Washington Post: Phillip Kennicott
• Arts Journal: Tobi Tobias

 

 

EDITORIAL WRITING - No award (!!)
FINALISTS: Paula Dwyer and Mark Whitehouse of Bloomberg News for their analysis of and prescription for the European debt crisis, dealing with important technical questions in ways that the average readers could grasp; Tim Nickens, Joni James, John Hill and Robyn Blumner of the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times for editorials that examined the policies of a new, inexperienced governor and their impact on the state, using techniques that stretched the typical editorial format and caused the governor to mend some of his ways; and Aki Soga and Michael Townsend, of the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press, for their campaign that resulted in the state’s first reform of open government laws in 35 years, reducing legal obstacles that helped shroud the work of government officials.

Ouch. Awfully harsh on the finalists, for this trio to get so close and to find none of them crowned the winner. Theoretically, this award is meant to celebrate "distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, using any available journalistic tool..." No awards were made in this category before: in 2008, 1993, 1935, 1932, 1930, 1921, and 1919. The award was first given out in 1917.

 

 

 

EDITORIAL CARTOONING -  Matt Wuerker of POLITICO
FINALISTS: Matt Bors, syndicated by Universal Uclick, for his pungent work outside the traditional style of American cartooning; and Jack Ohman, of The Oregonian, Portland, for his clever daily cartoons and a distinctive Sunday panel on local issues in which his reporting was as important as his artistic execution.

This is the first-ever win for POLITICO. Wuerker is celebrated for "for his consistently fresh, funny cartoons, especially memorable for lampooning the partisan conflict that engulfed Washington." He was a finalist in 2009. Wuerker has been illustrating and cartooning for the online news outlet since its launch. POLITICO reports on its win here.

See:

• Matt Wuerker's Pulitzer-winning cartoons
• Matt Bors Political Cartoons
• The Oregonian: Jack Ohman

 

 

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY -  Massoud Hossaini of Agence France-Presse
FINALISTS: Carolyn Cole and Brian van der Brug of the Los Angeles Times for their illumination of epic disasters in Japan, documenting the brutality of nature as well as the durability of the human spirit; and John Moore, Peter Macdiarmid and the late Chris Hondros of Getty Images for their brave coverage of revolutionary protests known as the Arab Spring, capturing the chaos and exuberance as ordinary people glimpsed new possibilities.

Yeah. Absolutely brutal. Pictured above is Tarana Akbari, 12, screaming after a suicide bombing at the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan, on December 6, 2011. A larger image is available here. This photo appeared in large form at the top of The New York Times in December. The Times' Lens blog talked with him about what happened, and how he as a photographer reacted. Ultimately, this is the photo that should have won. But I admit feeling sorry that Chris Hondros did not win for the work that he was doing throughout the Arab Spring, which ultimately cost him his life. Curiously, this is the moment when I realize that despite the upheaval of 2011, no Arab Spring journalism got a Pulitzer nod this year.

See:

• The Los Angeles Times: "Radiation fears, quake damage, keep danger level high in Japan"
• Reportage by Getty Images: "iLybia: Arab Spring Revolution"

 

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY -  Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post
FINALISTS: David Guttenfelder, Ng Han Guan and Rafael Wober of the Associated Press for their extraordinary portrayal of daily life inside the reclusive nation of North Korea, including scenes after the death of Kim Jong Il; and Francine Orr of the Los Angeles Times for her poignant portrait of the suffering by desperate families and misunderstood children who live with autism.

Walker is honored for "his compassionate chronicle of an honorably discharged veteran, home from Iraq and struggling with a severe case of post-traumatic stress, images that enable viewers to better grasp a national issue." This was part of the "Welcome Home" series that the Denver Post ran, a photo essay about Scott Ostrom, a 27-year-old who returned with sever post-traumatic stress disorder. The images are extraordinary; that's Scott, pictured above, trying to contain a panic attack in his Boulder apartment. The Denver Post tells the story about its Pulitzer win. Walker has been with his newspaper sicne 1998. This is the second Pulitzer Prize he has won in three years.

See:

• The Denver Post: "Welcome Home: The Story of Scott Ostrom"
• Associated Press: "Windows on North Korea: Photographs from the DPRK"
• The Los Angeles Times: "Autism: Diagnosing the Disorder in Adults"

How Not To Write A Column On Environmentalism

What a letdown.

I was intrigued by Margaret Wente's column in The Globe & Mail about legendary environmentalist David Suzuki, and his deep sorrows about the trajectory of the environmental movement -- which, he tells Wente, he's seen move backward rather than forward. (Suzuki is 76 years old, and the author of The Sacred Balance, among many other books.) Still in the throes of economic despair, federal governments across North America and Europe are rolling back environmental agendas. Suzuki says:

... "We didn't sell the right message.: Instead of arguing that environmental responsibility could co-exist with economic growth, he thinks, in effect, that the movement should have argued that we must abandon the quest for economic growth altogether. “We thought if we stop this dam, if we stop this clear-cutting, that’s a great success. But we didn’t deal with the underlying destructiveness, which was the mindset that attacked the forest or wanted to build the dam.”

I want to hear more about this. But Wente's column lapses -- in one relatively small way and in one very big way. She neatly avoids the kind of rigor and revelation that even a column-length article can provide.

The small point first: Wente opens with a quick overview of why it seems that Suzuki's disappointment is counter-intuitive. She writes of eco-successes, including that fact that: "Now, all developed countries have laws to protect the air, the water and natural habitats." What this neglects is how a great many developing countries not only have environmental laws, but have environmentalism written into their constitutions -- that is, many of them are way ahead of developed nations in terms of acknowledging the urgency of natural resources, and protecting land, water, and air as a matter of human rights. Consider Namibia, one of the first to write environmentalism into its constitution, where nearly half the land of the entire country is a national park, a conservancy, or a private reserve. South Africa affirmed constitutional environmental rights in 1996. In its guiding document, Ecuador acknowledges nature’s “right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution.” Kenya's new constitution, which passed overwhelmingly a couple years ago, gives citizens the right to sue for damage to the environment, preemptive to any human harm. (I wrote a bit more about this here.)

It makes sense: a great number of developing nations are (no coincidence) former colonies, and they are particularly sensitive to land use. While the enforcement capacity of these practices vary, I'm irritated at Wente's implication that industrial nations are the leader in integrating environmental "regulations" -- particularly when she goes on to note how a sense of economic necessity is compelling most of these countries to sidestep or otherwise de-prioritize these same regulations.

Now, my larger point. The biggest problem with Wente's column is manifested in the final paragraphs of her column. I'll respond to them one by one.

Yet, the problem isn’t that the environmental movement has failed to explain this message. It’s that people have rejected it. Mr. Suzuki fears the consequences for the planet and the human race will be catastrophic. I’m more optimistic. Doomsday cults have been wrong throughout history, and this one will be no exception.

The dismissiveness here is infuriating, particularly from a columnist who claims to have been influenced by Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring. Equating the environmental movement with doomsday cults overlooks one crucial distinction: science. We can actually measure our human impact on the earth, and how, in turn, an impacted earth affects human life. We can count the thousands of species that have gone extinct or have become endangered due to industrialization. We can see, by the numbers, how global temperature has gone way, way up in the last 150 years, and how that rise is causing measurable and dramatic change to our ecosystems. We can see how the carbon dioxide increasingly produced by humans over that same 150 years is responsible for most of the atmospheric and oceanic warming. This is not a state of mind: We know this. And we know that optimism, in itself, isn't enough to ensure that everything's going to be okay; certainly the likening of environmentalism with Jonestown is not helpful.

Depending on your point of view, we’re either entering the Dark Age or the Golden Age of energy development. Far from running out of fossil fuel, we seem to have a new bonanza of it. Human ingenuity keeps finding new and better ways to tap the Earth’s resources. A technological revolution is unlocking vast new reserves of energy around the world, including, some day, from the Arctic Ocean. None of this will be zero-risk or problem-free. There’ll be setbacks, mishaps and, probably, occasional disasters. But there’ll also be a gusher of innovation, wealth and jobs.

Again, Wente makes the mistake of turning environmental science into something that "depends on your point of view." Her shoulder-shrugging acceptance of "occasional disasters" is alarming. She also elides the fact that the environmental risk of drilling is not limited to the 'occasional' oil spill, but also far more sweeping and permanent consequences (from the vantage of the human species, at least): the disruption and destruction of ecosystems, and climate change (which, I now notice, is a phrase that doesn't once appear in Wente's column).

No one stands to benefit more than Canada. We are now the world’s second-largest petro-state, after Saudi Arabia. Some Canadians think this is a disaster. But most think it’s a good thing, providing we take due care of the environment. Our natural resources will help protect us from the economic shocks and jobless recoveries that are jolting the rest of the developed world. They’ll also help us to afford the education, old-age pensions and health care we need to sustain our idea of a caring state.

"Some"? "Most"? What convenient terms. They don't require any kind of citation at all to prove their validity. Let us take Wente's word for it on what the people of Canada think. It is also convenient for Wente to describe Canada's oil-producing jobs as a good thing, "providing we take due care of the environment." We have learned that Wente doesn't buy into Suzuki's conception of what it means to protect the environment. So, what does she mean? How much protection is "enough," and can she vouch for its enough-ness by showing how such protections will not contribute to habitat destruction, species endangerment, or climate change? Who knows? She is silent on this.

Environmental battles over resource development will define our politics for a long time. But the pipelines will be built, and the oil and gas will flow. Thanks to our strong legacy of environmental responsibility, we’ll be able to set environmental and safety standards for the world.

This paragraph makes no sense to me. The second and third sentences are damn near oxymorons.

But, first of all, saying that something will be with us "for a long time" is an easy way out. It's not just Wente: people do this constantly. "The poor will always be with us," and so on. It's a way of wriggling out of the urgency of the situation, and excusing oneself from contributing to any kind of solution: the language of consent. Let the people who live 'a long time' from now figure it out!

And then Wente follows with the shoulder-shrugging acceptance of the drilling of fossil fuels, articulating it in passive terms: "the pipelines will be built, and the oil and gas will flow." I suppose Wente means that nothing that any environmentalist, or citizen, or political leader, or executive can do will ever stop the oil-drilling and pipeline-building; there also will apparently be never enough pipes, oil, or gas. Wente seems to see the environmental movement as wholly impotent. But if she believes in the effectiveness of the eco-activism of the past, and if she admires Suzuki as much as she says she does, then I'm amazed at how easy it is for her to believe that environmentalists will do nothing of consequence on this most pressing of issues. Oh, and Wente also forgets that fossil fuels will not flow forever. Whether we change our ways or not, we will run out of it. Again: science measures this.

In the final sentence, Wente admits that environmentalists were successful in cultivating a more responsible culture (which, again, makes it amazing to me that she is so dismissive of present and future activism). And Wente suggests that Canada will set the standards for the world in terms of eco-awareness and safety. Why? How? What is your baseline, Ms. Wente, and how, again, does the ceaseless drilling of fossil fuels that contribute to climate change -- which, seriously, is probably the greatest threat of our time -- fit into your standards for environmentalism? Why is it so easy to crown your country as a model -- nay, hero -- before the world? As far as I can tell, nothing's been accomplished here but equivocation.

I disagree with Mr. Suzuki on a lot of things. But I also think we owe him a lot. Forty miles from Toronto, an American hedge fund is trying to develop a mega-quarry that would destroy thousands of acres of prime farmland and damage the watershed for miles around. He’s fighting to stop them. So are thousands of other concerned people, including, in a small way, me. Sure, we have our differences. But one way or another, we’re all environmentalists now.

This is the final paragraph.

Now, let me be clear: I appreciate Wente's overall point in her column. She's trying to say that people of very different opinions on contemporary environmental politics owe a lot to Suzuki and the movement he led in the past, as well as his continuing role on the frontline of sustainability activism today. True story. But her final lines are maddening. Wente wants it both ways: to be an environmentalist (because that is a "good" thing to be) without seriously challenging her habits or beliefs, most particularly when it comes to oil consumption and climate change. It doesn't work like that. You really do make choices. Your actions really do have consequences. And by minimizing the whole debate by abruptly putting all of the players on the same side ("Sure we have differences. But ... we're all environmentalists now."), Wente comes off as utterly patronizing, and, finally, nonsensical.

Hinging on the logic of "it's all relative," this column does not add up. But, given that is headlined as "The agony of David Suzuki," perhaps it is far more revealing than it intended to be.

 

UPDATE: Oh my gosh: there just came news that David Suzuki stepped down from the board of his foundation because, as The National Post puts it, there were "fears his political views could put its charitable status at risk as Ottawa cracks down on organizations deemed to be too politically active."

In a letter to his supporters on Friday, the former Nature of Things host said he left the David Suzuki Foundation’s board of directors because he wanted to be able to speak freely “without fear that my words will be deemed too political and harm the organization of which I am so proud.”

The March 30 budget said charities would soon have to report more information about their political activities and sources of foreign funding.

They’d also have to limit spending on advocacy to 10% of their budget.

The full text of Suzuki's letter is here.

This is alarming news for both the Suzuki foundation and Canada's climate for advocacy and action. It makes it even more urgent for those of us who do have the privilege of articulating our eco-opinions in the media to do it with accuracy and integrity: the very best our fierce minds and hearts have to offer.

Related:

• David Suzuki Foundation
• National Center for Science Education
• 350.org
• WBEZ: "Climate change hits mightiest of Great Lakes"
• The New Yorker: "Reporter at Large" feature on a huge environmental lawsuit won in Ecuador against Chevron.
• The New York Times: "Profits Before Environment"
• Society of Environmental Journalists
• Earth Island Institute

Now We Are Six: Happy Birthday, Isak!

Not kidding: when I debuted this website, I sent an email to my friends and family to alert them to my new home on the web, and the subject line read: "Ta-DA!" The note brimmed with the tone of a total newbie. I quote:

Hello, trusted inner circle!

I'm writing to let you know that I'm now on the blogosphere. That's right, the techno-savvy Anna that you know so well now has a WEBSITE! It's only a few days old, and it will surely evolve a lot as I work on it in the next few weeks, but I'm interested in you guys' feedback!  [...]

The address is--get ready to bookmark this now--www.isak.typepad.com.

The site-Isak-is named after Isak Dinesen, a writer I love.

Let me know what you think, and how I might make this better!

I feel so modern now.

Love!
Anna

 

Yeah.

It's been a long journey.

With a clandestine click of the clock, Isak turned six years old last week. Put another way, this bookish space has been my practice for more than a fifth of my life. This is a searing space: by turns, I feel my mind, my heart, and, on not a few occasions, my dignity are on the line -- which, curiously, is rather similar to what my reading experience is like.

In the past year, I've slowed down with Isak. There are reasons for this: a big one is my time in Kenya (which slowed me in a lot of ways, road-crossing excepted). Other creative projects sing for my attention. And, also, what I share here has taken a turn toward the longer, more detailed, and decidedly more personal. This is a different way of taking space. It seems to involve more pauses along the way.

What I love about making Isak is that it is a malleable thing. It evolves as I do. My quiet is reflected here, as well as my feverish imagining. Isak is an animal that prompts me into reflection and articulation; it dances me away from intellectual laziness. But while I'm refracted here, this site isn't about me: there is purpose in stories, and there is worth not only in reading or hearing them, but in lingering in their reverb, speaking back, connecting them, working through them line by line, tasting their metal on our tongues.

Let's make an accounting of the sixth year of Isak, and indulge in a data geek-out along the way.

 

The Story: What Happened On Isak This Year 

1. I debuted an e-newsletter (announced in last year's "five years fierce" post) and found it to be a wonderful new way of connecting with Isak readers, and beyond. I send it every five or six weeks, and feature writing that appears nowhere else, alongside articles, blog posts, and a "source of joy." The first missive was sent April 25, 2011; I sent nine in the last year. Shockingly, while the subscriber list has steadily grown, there has not been a single unsubscriber -- though there are a fair number of "did not opens." There is a 54% average open rate. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
   
   
2. "Choose Books: A Gift Guide for People Who Care About Stories" emerged in a third edition this year: expanded, updated, revised, and available for free download. It bulked up to 69 pages of bookish joy, and features hundreds of eclectic book recommendations that are spotlighted in both extended profiles and listings that target, say, wanderers, knitters, politicos, sports fan, spiritual seekers, teenagers, and people going through hard times. I expanded the section on the best literary organizations for you to offer gift donations, and updated the "Top Ten Magazine Gift Subscriptions." A brand-new section highlights the best books to pair with their cinematic counterparts. This year's "Choose Books" got more attention, and more downloads, than ever, including nice pieces on it from The Rumpus, Kinna Reads, and Feministing.
   
   
3. Isak went home, sort of. While in Kenya, I roved the creaky rooms and the vast grounds where the storyteller for whom I named this site lived. (The home is pictured above, with the Ngong Hills visible between the pillers.) I peeked through her bedroom window and saw the shadow cast over her low bed. I sat on her porch. I crossed my bare ankles when I sat at her mill-stone.
   
   
4. Three new literary conversations were added to the Isak interview series, and among them are writers, directors, readers, publishers, artists, and actors.
   
   
5. I continue to benefit from the amazing talent and skill of many smart people, most particularly Amy H., who brings scrutiny to Isak (for fun, no less!) and keeps me on firm ground -- she catches the mislaid links, the inappropriate apostrophe's.
   
   
6. Oh, come on, that last one was a joke, people!
   
   
7. Among the others who bless me: Chris M., a continual supplier of links, dry wit, and the occasional book review. Untold publishers, editors, authors, and PR people make this venture into literary culture more accessible, as well as more fun. Readers who respond in comments or emails push me to be as accurate and honest as I can be. As well, it is still a relatively recent turn for me to experiment with public vulnerability in this space: your responses have been both helpful and heartening. You have no idea.

 

Content:

Total unique posts, including this one: 3361
Number of unique posts in the past year: 333 (compared to 432 in 2010-2011 and 575 in 2009-2010) 
Yearly average of unique posts: 560.2
Daily average of unique posts: 1.53
Total number of videos (in partnership with The Collagist): 27
Number of new videos in the last year: 6
Most common post categories: Africa, Book Reviews, Culture, Literary Life, Media, Poetry, Politics
More occasional post categories: Detroit Stories, Ecological, Health, Interviews, Isak, Poverty & Economic Justice, Prisons & People, Science, Spirituality. No new categories were added in the last year.

 

Visitors:

Origin of visitors: 175 nations and territories (four more than in 2010-2011)
Nation of origin of visitors:

1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. Canada
4. India (up one slot from last year)
5. Australia (down one slot from last year)
6. Japan (up a lot: did not make top twenty last year)
7. China (ibid)
8. Kenya (up two slots)
9. Germany (down two slots)
10. Italy
11. The Philippines
12. (not set)
13. France
14. Brazil
15. The Netherlands
16. South Africa
17. New Zealand
18. Turkey
19. Spain
20. Russia
21. Sweden
22. Mexico

I'm most surprised by the rise of China and Japan in this year's visitors. Ireland, Sweden, and Pakistan dropped out of the top twenty, but overall I feel pretty pleased by the multi-continental spread of readers. Readers from Kenya visit the most pages per visit and, by far, they spend the longest amount of time on Isak.

Nations that had exactly one resident visit Isak in the past year: Angola, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Greenland, Gambia, Niger, Tajikistan

City of origin of visitors:

1. New York
2. Detroit (up fourteen spots)
3. Chicago
4. Washington, D.C.
5. Los Angeles
6. (not set)
7. Ann Arbor
8. San Francisco
9. Putian
10. London
11. Nairobi (up five spots)
12. Toronto
13. Naha
14. Seattle
15. Austin
16. Sydney
17. Bethlehem
18. Houston
19. Wayne
20. Portland
21. Philadelphia
22. Boston

 In total, Isak visitors came from 7,340 cities in the last year, 454 more than the year before. Brooklyn dropped out of the top twenty, as did Minneapolis, Atlanta, Cambridge, and Tucson. Portland, Bethlehem, Houston, and Wayne are making new appearances. Of the twenty-one cities I list here (let's ignore "not set", shall we?), six are international and fifteen are American.

Cities with exactly one Isak visitor (selected): Resistencia, Rio Gallegos, Toowoomba, Zell am See, Hoogstraten, Heist-Op-Den-Berg, Peace River, Hope, Nakskov, Ibadan, Monrovia

 Languages: Isak was read in 123 different languages over the last year. The top three were national variations on English, followed by, in descending order, Chinese, French, Spanish, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Italian.

Audience snapshot (according to Alexa): "Based on internet averages, isak.typepad.com is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 35-44, have no children and are graduate school educated." This (still) embarrassingly mirrors my personal  profile. Compared to last year, my audience is slightly older (last year: 25-34) and more educated (last year: college educated).

 

Traffic:

Links: 194 sites link to Isak (100 more than in 2010-2011) 
Average pages viewed per visit: 1.23 (.02 less than last year)
Most common traffic sources: Search traffic (52.22%, up about 5% compared to last year); referring sites (29.77%, down about 8%), and direct traffic (17.78%, up about 3%).
Specifically, the most common traffic sources are: Facebook, Google, Feministing, Twitter, Typepad, HTML Giant, and Stumble Upon
 

Top queries used in search browsers that find Isak (according to Alexa):

1. "you should have some" (Editor's note: ... what?...)
2. isak
3. lie down in darkness
4. red mars
5. jamaica kincaid lucy
6. shawntel v. clark
7. i kill giants

Most popular posts: Setting aside the homepage, here are the most popular landing spots for Isak readers ... most of which benefit, I'm sure, from image searches and assigned English papers.

1. So You Want to Apply for a Fulbright
2. Review: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
3. Frida Kahlo, Resting in Peace
4. Jean-Michel Basquiat: Catharsis (1983)
5. Book Review: William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness
6. BREAKING: A Heart for Dean Young!
7. Choose Books: A Gift Guide for People Who Care About Stories
8. A Reading List for Writers of Narrative Nonfiction
9. Review: Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas

The most popular day to visit Isak in 2011-2012: Friday, July 29, 2011
What did I post that day?: Actually, nothing. But "So You Want to Apply for a Fulbright" was on the top of the page from the day before, and it was the most popular post of the year. I also think I was still seeing the bump from my Ty Cobb article, published the week before.
The least popular day to visit Isak in 2010-2011: Saturday, July 2, 2011
What did I post that day? Nothing you care about, probably.

 

Selected Feedback from This Year's Reader Survey:  

Top reasons you visit Isak: (respondents could choose multiple reasons)

• I like reading about books and literary culture (72.2%, compared to 65.7% last year)
• I'm just curious what Anna is up to (63.9%, compared to 65.7% last year)
• I discover interesting things -- a magazine, website, or writer I didn't know about before (52.8%)
• I like the voice (50%)
• I like the eclectic mix of news and original analysis (47.4%)

Least common reasons to visit Isak: "I'm interested in Detroit and Detroiters" and "I like the bent towards translated literature."

Among other reasons for visiting Isak:

• "A sweet combo of intelligence & humility. You're trying to precisely articulate what's true, not just to impress or persuade people."
• "Isak is the most interestingly diverse 'read' I've found online. When I donated, Anna wrote me a thank you note (handwritten, mind you). That blew me away. It's in my box of special mementos."
• "I love the layout of your website. Funky reason, huh?"
• "Inspiration for my own posts, and just a good read."
• "I got mentioned in an article, once!"
• "Though I'm not specifically interested in Detroit and Detroiters, I'm interested in Detroit as representative of American cities - especially rust belt cities - in the early 21st century. There's an article about the thousands of abandoned dogs in Detroit in the recent Rolling Stone, for example, and the situation appears similar to New Orleans where there is also a lot of overgrown land that is now the home to large packs of dogs. As soon as I read the Rolling Stone article I thought "I wonder what Anna thinks about this." I'm usually interested in what Richard Florida has to say and I think your Detroit commentary is a valuable compliment to a kind of new urban dialogue."
• "Seeing what a voracious reader it up to."
• "What's Isak?" 

Feedback on Isak's book reviews: (respondents could choose multiple reasons)

• Because of the reviews, I've picked up books I wouldn't have read otherwise. (55.3%, compared to 35.3% last year) (Editor's note: This is my favorite statistic of the whole survey)
• I like getting a distinct and interesting perspective on the review books (47.4%, compared to 32.4% last year)
• I don't read many of the reviews. (7.9%, slightly less than last year)
• I read the reviews regularly (36.8%)
• The review are fine, but they should be collected on a dedicated page so that they are easier to find (26.3%)
• I wish the reviews covered more contemporary and just-released books. (13.9%)

Other opinions about Isak's book reviews:

• "I haven't read many of the reviews. The review of Fun Home was my favorite. It got me started on a graphic book phase."
• "Though I love the literary flavor of the site I've never been drawn to the book reviews, which seem to take on a different tone somehow. I'd hate to see you eliminate them, though, because they seem a core part of what you do. ..."
• "The reviews are usually done on genres that I do not normally read. That being said- I do not believe the genre should be changed for only the public's interest in books (ie more popular or recent), I think your reviews would loose something if you chose items that you were not as knowledgeable about or felt as strongly about."

Posts you like best: (respondents could choose multiple reasons)

• The more personal essays (66.7%)
• Literary & Media Indulgences, the round-up of links (52.8%)
• Book Reviews (52.8%)
• Short posts that highlight interesting articles from around the web (52.8%)
• Interviews (47.2%)

What you think about "Choose Books": Most of you said you "loved it" and that you really valued that it is available for free. The downloadable PDF seems to work for you. 20.6% of you said that you used it to pick out a book for someone else, or for yourself. So: I guess this is going well. Onwards!

What else you had to say about "Choose Books":

• "I hate that I didn't click ;I'd be willing to pay a small amount for it' because (1) I think it's worth a non-small amount, (2) I could totally afford that, and (3) if I'm honest, I doubt I'd actually make the effort to pay even a small amount for it. Sad how the sense that everything is free on the internet affects things like this. On the other hand, I might well voluntarily donate something non-small to Isak largely on account of loving Choose Books in particular."
• "Good effort, though not an interest of mine."
• "I think it's fabulous that you do this"
• "maybe you could make an abridged version available for free and charge a small amount for the full version. or make the full version available in html and then charge for a downloadable PDF."

 What needs to change:

• "I think it might need a bit more white space. All that text can be intimidating. But I like Isak as is."
• "Including other writers, other reviewers."
• "Off the top of my head, more links especially for recommended ebooks would be nice."
• "I still would like to hear more about Detroit through your eyes."
• "maybe some redesign? It's really easy to navigate the site but it seems it could have a clearer more dynamic layout and color scheme - to my eye the third column (the one on the far right) seems to almost disappear. Since you cover several kinds of issues in some depth, it might be helpful to have them categorized in some way for easier access"
• "I'd like to continue to hear about Africa. And much more sports!!"
• "Lighthearted good news - short, simple"
• "I read sites all day long as I need breaks from work so I like seeing shorter pieces alongside longer pieces. I appreciate the longer texts but don't always have the time to read them."

 Additional Selected Narrative Feedback from This Year's Reader Survey: 

• "I'd personally appreciate a little blurb on each item in the Literary & Media Indulgences posts to describe what they are so that, hopefully, instead of opening 30 windows and then closing 20 of them after reading a couple paragraphs, I might just open 15 of them and quickly close 5 or something."
• "I really appreciate the newsletter, I enjoy the intro and appreciate the digest format so it gives me a chance to catch what I missed."
• "A big admirer of Isak, even though I don't go that often! I would like to it hit my feeds--Twitter, FB--more often, then I think I'd be a more frequent visitor."
• "Thanks so much for your time and dedication to this amazing website!"
• "Hello, Anna. Thanks for Isak. More power. I wish I could email you one day. :)" (Editor's note: please do!)
• "Talking about literature should be personal."
• "Hello and thanks for this labor of love."
• "I very much enjoy the personal essays - they're well written and relevant, not at all self indulgent. I also like the Detroit theme and would like to see a bit more of that new urbanism kind of thing. I LOVE Literary & Media Indulgences and always look forward to them. I've learned a great deal, and garnered much enjoyment from Isak and am so glad it's here. You do such good work!"
• "I'm jealous! Thanks for being a visible woman speaking on so many of the topics you write on. Keep it up!"
• "For some reason, I enjoy the paradox of seeing you, with your big world view and huge literary / journalistic talents, quietly stuffed into the little box office at Go Comedy." (Editor's note: I spend about one night a week working at an improv theater. Looks like I've been found out.)
• "Ciao from Kansas!"
  
  

Personal favorite posts of the last year:

Book Review: Finder, Volume 1, by Carla Speed McNeil (3.13.12)
10 Underrated Women Writers (Global Edition) (3.8.12)
On Re-Reading (2.27.12)
Book Review: Sula, by Toni Morrison (2.20.12)
GOOD Magazine Goes Bad (1.28.12)

Book Banning in Michigan High School Ignites Community (1.16.12)
Book Review: You Deserve Nothing, by Alexander Maksik (1.10.12)
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: The Classics (1.9.12)
Beautiful Things Seen This Year: 2 (12.31.11)
Beautiful Things Seen This Year: 1 (12.30.11)

Why I'm Not Finishing This Book (9.22.11)
Book Review: The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky (9.19.11)
As It Happened: The Journalists of September 11 (9.11.11)
Coming Back (8.31.11)
Anne Lamott and the Gold Coins (8.31.11)

"Whatever it was that wouldn't let us go": On Writing and Necessity (8.19.11)
Stories of Solitary Men (8.3.11)
This Story of Ours (7.16.11)
Kicking it on Kawangware (6.28.11)
Isak Interview #13: Weslie Onsando (6.11.11)

Book Review: Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (6.6.11)
Isak Interview #12: Elizabeth Senja Spackman and Emily Mendelsohn (6.2.11)
A Thesis Statement for Gil Scott-Heron (5.30.11)
Pirates, Lasers, and Lucy: Storytelling at Lavington Kindergarten (5.20.11)
This Place, Chosen (5.12.11)

Friend Frida (5.9.11)
Madonna, Malawi, and a Frustrating Article (5.6.11)
Kyle (4.25.11)
Beverly Cleary is 95 Years Old. Also, She is Awesome. (4.12.11)
"There isn't a thing to eat down there in the rabbit hole of your own bitterness except your own desperate heart." (4.5.11)

 

 My Ask:

I love making Isak, and I believe in it: I believe creating space for "tales and truth." There is purpose in tangling with stories with ferocity and humor and constancy. While giving the site a great deal of time and my own money, I have further kept my commitment to keep this site ad-free. If you find this website valuable, please consider making a donation to support it.

 

 

To those of you who have already donated to Isak: my knees weaken in thanks. Seriously. Beyond the financial support, your moral support moves me.

 

My Other Ask:

 

join the mailing list

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

  

What's Next:

• Rearranging. I will be collecting book reviews on a new page on this site that makes them easier to navigate and explore long after they are published. The page with my writing list needs some serious clean-up: I will re-organize that according that different publication and issues I write about, and will make articles available both via links and PDF (the latter to stave off dread dead links).  In short, while I don't anticipate a full re-design, you're going to see this space cleaned out and polished up.
  
  
• Doing what I do. Honestly, my intention is to just keep bringing texture and voice (hardly my own, only) to this space. I'm considering also on variations of the "Choose Books" concept -- other kinds of freely available books, or resources of some sort.

Related:

• Five Years Fierce: Happy Birthday, Isak!
• A Weekend in Boston; or, Happy Third Birthday, Isak!
• Back to Boston
• Debut

10 Underrated Women Writers (Global Edition)

Whose stories are we paying attention to? If the statistics released by VIDA last week are any indication, it’s not a whole lot of female authors. And with the numbers of literary translation at below 3% in U.S, it’s not many international authors either. Perhaps that context has something to do with why these ten extraordinary writers from around the world are maddeningly underrated. I'm using the occasion of International Women's Day to celebrate the literary intersection.

This is a set of wildly different writers—some are at the beginning of their careers, others are broadly published, and still others are no longer alive. They have been much-published and translated, or not (yet). They write novels, stories, poems, and graphic novels. They are comic and dramatic artists, maximalists and minimalists, emotive and intellectual.

Wherever you stand in the conversation about translation and gender in the literary world, the point comes down to this: good books, and good writers, are often overlooked by those who just might fall in love with them. So let’s turn on a spotlight.

 

Marguerite Abouet (Côte d’Ivoire/France)

Aya grows on you. While at first the graphic novel seems overly frothy, the story soon settles into a bright, smart, and gently funny tale of Abidjan in 1978. Aya is the first book by Abouet, though it's quickly been followed up with Aya of Yop City and Aya: The Secrets Come Out (all collaborations with illustrator Clément Oubrerie and translated from French by Helge Dascher). (UPDATE: Aya: Life in Yop City will be released in July, 2012.) Abouet is explicit about how her inspiration for the stories of Aya came from a desire to reveal the ordinariness, gossip, romance, work, school, and domesticity of an African city that is otherwise overwhelmed by gloomy media representations (particularly, given the ongoing presidential standoff in Côte d’Ivoire, now). The result is decidedly unpretentious, utterly charming, and often striking. Want even more charm? See also the Bookslut interview with Abouet.

Alina Bronsky (Russia/Germany)

To read Broken Glass Park is to be immersed in the sharp-edged, hyper-intelligent world of seventeen-year-old Sascha, who, just months before the story opens, witnessed her mother’s murder. The vivid story plays out in 221 chapter-less pages narrated by Sascha’s fierce voice. Moments of humor carve out space for tenderness in the midst of a fraught tale of violence, class, and emotional stagnation. The first novel by Bronsky, Broken Glass Park was nominated for one of Europe’s most prestigious literary awards, the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. Europa Editions, via translator Tim Mohr, released the English translation in 2010 (my review). Bronsky (who writes under a pseudonym) was born in Russia and moved to Germany when she was thirteen. Europa release Bronsky’s second novel, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine (also translated by Mohr) last May. I loved it. So did a lot of other people: Publisher's Weekly named it one of the best books of 2011. And yet, for how good Bronsky is, she deserves far more acclaim and attention.

 

Slavenka Drakulić (Croatia/Sweden)

Adept at finding what is true in any story, Drakulić switches easily between nonfiction and fiction. Her honed intelligence is evident in work like Frida’s Bed, a concise novel (translated by Christina P. Zorić) that begins and ends with the beds of artist Frida Kahlo, switch-backing in point-of-view in an exploration of the intersection of chronic pain and artistry. Meanwhile, in A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism (published last year) eight animals narrate the rise and fall of Eastern European communism through a series of fables. Drakulić’s more straightforward accounting of her Eastern Europe’s transformation comes through Café Europa: Life After Communism—a beautifully clear collection of essays that spins on the region’s anger, apathy, and the desperate “me-too” spirit behind the proliferation of cafes with names like ‘Café Europa’ after the Iron Curtain fell. And in The Would Never Hurt a Fly, she examines war criminals who are being tried at The Hague, with particular focus on those at the helm of Yugoslavia's destruction. Gloria Steinem has called Drakulić "a writer and journalist whose voice belongs to the world." All the same, as a savvy and versatile writer, Drakulić’s renown is still nowhere near it deserves to be.

Jane Gardam (England)

In the last four decades, Jane Gardam has published nearly thirty acclaimed books. Her work has been shortlisted for the Orange and Booker prizes, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award, among a host of other honors. And yet somehow, Gardam is weirdly little-known. Her most recent novel, The Man in the Wooden Hat (2009), is constructed as a collection of vignettes that locates its center in the lives of post-war women living at the end of the British empire, when the expectations of the generations that raised them thunderously fell apart. This adds to a dizzying body of work that includes a story collection set in Jamaica (Black Faces, White Faces, 1975), a novel that turns on an adolescent narrator’s immersion in the books of Daniel Defoe (Crusoe's Daughter, 1985), and a one-sided epistolary tale that flirts with delusion (The Queen of the Tambourine, 1991). The Yorkshire-born author has also written children's books.

 

Billie Livingston (Canada)

 While she is celebrated in Canada, Livingston’s work has yet to make a broad impact beyond her native borders. Greedy Little Eyes is her most recent book:  a brooding, intimate collection of stories that is unafraid to face drama squarely. There is a restless mother who kidnaps her daughter’s friend and drives to Las Vegas, the victims of sexual abuse who exact horrific revenge, and the lonely music store employee who discovers her boyfriend’s secrets via Facebook. In all, these stories are haunted by people who feel they deserve better. Livingston, who now lives in Vancouver, is also a poet: her collection The Chick at the Back of the Church was nominated for a Pam Lowther award. Her next book, which will be released in July, is a novel called One Good Hustle, which is a story of the daughter of two con artists. Livingston's short story, "The Trouble with Marlene," looks to be headed toward a film adaptation.

 

Lori Ostlund (USA)
 

The Bigness of the World, Ostlund’s debut collection of eleven stories, won the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction, as well as a California Book Award. And it is an extraordinary book, the kind where you are most tempted to exhibit its virtues by reading aloud from it. Distracted by foreign spaces—whether they are manifested in global cities or in one’s own home—the men and women of Bigness hold tight to convention (especially grammar) while witnessing transformation. (Here's my full review of The Bigness of the World.) The peripatetic Ostlund, a Minnesota native who has lived all over the world, was recently a visiting writer at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is at work on a novel that is tentatively titled After the Parade. An excerpt of it was recently published in The Nashville Review.

 

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Russia)

Petrushevskaya is unafraid of things turning sinister. In fact, her realistic fiction was considered ‘too dark’ by Soviet officials, who banned her work years ago. When she couldn’t get into print, she got her voice heard through theater stages. Nowadays, though, Petrushevskaya received Russia’s most prestigious prize, The Triumph, for lifetime achievement in 2002. And she’s still writing—though she’s turned her attention to twisted fairy tales.  There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales (translated by Keith Gessen and Anna Summers) is her latest collection to be published in English. Often centering Russian characters, her stories are troubled by nightmares and ghosts, the military draft and hunger, vodka and the dead. Reality bends in and out of irreality as the author explores all sides of fear. While Petrushevskaya calls the short story “one genre that is definitely tragic,” that isn’t her only temperature. She also writes plays, poems, children’s stories, and essays—sometimes even funny ones. See, for example, The Time: Night, about "a trite poet and disastrous parent living at the margin of a disintegrating Soviet culture."

 

Mercè Rodoreda (Catalonia)

It is not uncommon to call Rodoreda the greatest writer to come out of Catalonia. Rodoreda began to write fiction while living in exile after the Spanish Civil War; she’d been forced to flee because of her work as a writer for the autonomous Catalan government, and the Franco regime’s efforts to extinguish Catalan language and culture. The Time of the Doves (1962), centering a young shopkeeper in Barcelona during the civil war, is Rodoreda’s most acclaimed novel and has been translated into 33 languages. Open Letter Books published The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda last year, which collects thirty-one intense and sometimes macabre tales translated by Martha Tennent, and drawn from three of Rodoreda’s story collections, representing the author’s stylistic range and artistic transformations. See also Death in Spring, another Open Letter collaboration with Tennant, which National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward loves.

 

Fariba Vafi (Iran)

Wildly popular in her native Iran, My Bird (translated from Farsi by Mahnaz Kousha and Nasrin Jewell) is the only Fariba Vafi novel that is available in English—which is a crime. A slim book packed with emotive power, My Bird is narrated in series of graceful vignettes by a nameless thirty-five-year-old woman in modern-day Tehran. She is the reluctant mother of two small children, the wife of a man who fantasizes about moving to Canada (and has a habit of leaving her alone for stretches at a time), and daughter to a powerful mother who is appalled by her. As the narrator struggles to make her way through the complicated dynamics of power, powerlessness, and the perplexities of independence, My Bird presents an uncommon story of urban domestic life in Iran. The book’s fifty-three very short chapters present an elliptical but fully-realized portrait of how even absence is a presence. My Bird won the Yalda Iranian Literary Prize for best novel.

 

Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina)

Valenzuela is a fiercely questioning writer. She provokes response, both formally and in the rich content of her fiction and nonfiction—particularly when she skewers the social organization of dictatorships (as in Argentina in the 1970s). Valenzuela hones in on how the hyper-hierarchy of dictatorships mirror the patriarchal foundation of social relationships, romance, and sex. Not nearly enough of Valenzuela’s work is translated in English, but what is available includes He Who Searches (translated by Helen R. Lane), which centers a semiotics professor who moonlights as a Barcelona psychologist; in disguise, he visits a prostitute two mornings a week in order to (secretly) analyze her. Dark Desires and Others is what Valenzuela calls her “apocryphal autobiography” about her decade of living in New York City. And in Black Novel (with Argentines), translated by Toby Talbot, Valenzuela turns her inventive mind to the suspense novel, set among a community of Argentine exiles in New York City where death, madness, and artistry take a subversive shape.

 

Honorable Mentions

• Dubravka Ugrešić (Croatia/Netherlands) 
• Micere Githae Mugo (Kenya/Zimbabwe)
• Lila Azam Zanganeh (Iran/France/USA)
• Carla Speed McNeil (USA)
• Ingrid Winterbach (South Africa)
• Pascale Quiviger (Canada/England)
• Haifa Zangana (Iraq)
• Githa Hariharan (India/England)
• Grace Ogot (Kenya)
• Jessamyn West (USA)
• Ama Ata Aidoo (Ghana)
• Bessie Head (South Africa)
• Toni Cade Bambara (USA)
• Mavis Gallant (Canada/France)

The Slate Book Review, and The Others

It debuts this weekend, a welcome entry into a media landscape that has cut and killed literature from its pages as if books were a virus. As described in the opening announcement, the Slate Book Review is a monthly feature that will be "delivering reviews of the newest fiction and nonfiction; essays on reading, writing, and the great (and terrible) books of years gone by; author interviews; videos and podcasts; and much more." It is also, amazingly, featuring a different cartoonist each month to illustrate each issue, customizing the Slate Book Review logo anew as he or she finds fit.

I'm still making my way through the first issue, with artist Derf Backderf bringing it to life, so my opinion on still slides more toward hopeful than admiring or disappointed. Among the essays I'm intrigued by are Allison Benedickt's piece on "the mean-girl advice of What to Expect When You're Expecting" and a feature with an overwrought headline that is nonetheless by the smart June Thomas on the brilliant Jeannette Winterson. Elsewhere, John Leonard's criticism is evaluated, and Hari Kunzru's new novel is reviewed. It's not surprising to see the first issue dominated by Slate insiders (including Dana Stevens, who I usually love, as well as Thomas), but it'll be nice to see the Book Review used as an opportunity to bring more wide-ranging freelance voices to Slate. I also hope that international writing finds a place on Slate's pages.

Which brings to mind to other outstanding literary magazines that have new issues out this month. Words Without Borders, Open Letters Monthly, and World Literature Today are go-to publications for me, and both have persisted in the increasingly eclectic venture of the literary magazine and book review.

Words Without Borders has the Mexican Drug War as its theme this issue, with translated nonfiction by Carmen Boullosa ("a report from hell"), an interview with Sergio González Rodríguez on the intersection of the Mexican literary world with the drug war, fiction on "The Way to Juarez", and reviews of books by César Aira and Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.

Open Letters Monthly, meanwhile, is celebrating "the critical issue." Its wealth of features examines the way critics have treated the work of Agatha Christie, Virigina Woolf's literary essays, Randell Jarrell as a reluctant critic, and how Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman both danced the line as critics and writers.

And World Literature Today is featuring international literary journalism this month, which editor Daniel Simon (see the Isak interview with him) crafts as a tradition linking Albert Camus with Anthony Shadid, the New York Times reporter who recently died in Syria. The magazine has what must be one of Shadid's final interviews, as well as an essay on Spain's female literary journalists, an examination of the "literary series" in Nigeria's national newspapers, and an interview with artist and writer (and Michigander) David Small (who you know I love). There's also a timeline of "running literature," and Greece is highlighted in the "What to Read Now" column.

As Slate pushes forward with its book review, it might consider examining the rigorous and non-traditional literary magazines -- two of which are online-only -- that have paved its way.

Speaking: Julie Mehretu

Seven Acts of Mercy, 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 9 1/2×21’.

 

"Even though I collect and work with images in the studio they don’t enter the work directly. Instead I’m trying to create my own language. It’s the reason I use the language of European abstraction in my work. I am interested in those ideas because I grew up looking at that type of work, but also not taking any of it at face value. It is as big a part of me as Chinese calligraphy or Ethiopian illuminated manuscripts. The more I understand any kind of work the more I see myself conceptually borrowing from it. Going to the Met and seeing particular paintings over and over inevitably becomes a part of my language. Abstraction in that way allows for all those various places to find expression."

-- Julie Mehretu, speaking in a 2005 interview with BOMB Magazine

 

Julie Mehretu is an Ethiopian-born artist who grew up in Michigan and now lives in New York City. Widely exhibited, she won a MacArthur 'genius' grant the same year that she became known for fighting for the right of artists to have a say in where their work goes, paycheck bedamned. Mehretu studied at Kalamazoo College and the Rhode Island School of Design. Find her at the Marian Goodman Gallery, on Art21, in The New Yorker, and among the poetry of Sappho.

Literary & Media Indulgences - 2/18/2012

 

-- Along with many, many people, I am shaken by the death of Anthony Shadid at age 43 in Syria, where he had been covertly investigating the resistance to the brutal rule President Bashar al-Assad. The longtime New York Times foreign correspondent was one of the most essential reporters throughout the Arab Spring; he was one of the four Times journalists kidnapped in Libya last year. (See Shadid's NPR interview about being one of the narrators of the Arab Spring here.) Shadid won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work as "a gatherer, an observer, a listener." One of his last stories, on the rise of Islamism in Tunisia, was published after his death. Just a couple weeks ago, Mother Jones ran an interview with Shadid, where he discussed growing up Lebanese in Oklahoma City and his understanding that "I don't think there's any story worth dying for, but I do think there are stories worth taking risks for."  Longform collects his greatest dispatches. Shadid's book, House of Stone, was to be published in March. It has since been scheduled for an earlier release.

-- Ahdaf Soueif on "Cairo, Hers Again" in Guernica: "A month before, a week before, three days before, we could not have told you it was going to happen."

-- The poetic legacy of the Chicago Defender, an African-American newspaper founded in 1905.

-- Gish Jen (whose title story in Who's Irish? is a favorite of mine) talks up Linsanity in the New York Times.

-- Author Sara Levine, interviewed: "No one asks this of male narrators, to be likable.”

-- Bookforum interviews Sergio González Rodríguez, the journalist whose work on female homicides in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez inspired Roberto Bolaño and Javier Marias.

-- Jonathan Franzen appears to think that readers have trouble loving Edith Wharton's novels because she was both privileged and, according to him, unattractive. I beg to differ, but Steve Donoghue has the best response (albeit one that is far harsher in the overall assesment of Franzen's character than seems fair -- the new incarnation of Norman Mailer he is not). (Thanks to Chris M. for the initial link.)

-- Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the influence of fonts in urban development.

-- The Houston Chronicle looks at the role of "snitches" in journalism, or the "a legacy of secret government informants." See also, in The New York Times, "a high-tech war on leaks."

-- While I'm partial to The Michigan Daily, Roger Ebert is right to champion The Daily Illini as one of the greats in campus reporting for 140 years. And it needs our help.

-- Roxane Gay's extended comment in response to "On Getting Paid: Literary Magazines and Remuneration" in The Millions is the best part of the article.

-- Andre Dubus III on "love in a class-riven America." A lot of this rung true for me.

-- Second-grade field trip to the parking garage: a fascinating New York Times article on the value of field trips in education, particularly in, as Dubus would put it, a "class-riven America."

-- A new book examines the survival of beauty, pattern, mimicry, and camouflage in nature.

-- "The trials of Greg Mortenson." That's the Three Cups of Tea guy, and that's Outside magazine doing the rigorous follow-up to the case of literary fraud.

-- MacArthur awards for "creative & effective institutions" have gone to The Moth for its dedication to the art of storytelling. Detroiters, hit up Cliff Bell's the first Thursday of the month to experience it live (Theme: "Gangs, Cliques, and Crowds"). There's also an upcoming Moth in Ann Arbor this month. (Theme: "Bosses.") Other notable MacArthur winners include the Center for Investigative Reporting and the National Juvenile Defender Center.

-- What is the impact of Hollywood success on Michael Chabon's fiction? Tablet investigates.

-- The decline of the arts has been greatly exaggerated, says Jed Perl.

-- Poet Mary Oliver is seriously ill. The new blog Dear Mary is collecting letters from her readers.

-- "The new world of William Carlos Williams."

-- "The unsung maestro of East African literature."

-- Vladmir Putin is proposing a new Russian "great books" program.

-- From one of the most recent Three Percent podcasts: "on books and being alone."

-- It's an honor to give writer Cheryl Strayed credit for her wonderful work as the Dear Sugar columnist, which she wrote passionately and anonymously up through Valentine's Day. The New Yorker profiles Strayed after her coming-out. See my posts provoked by Dear Sugar, including: "There isn't a thing to eat down there in the rabbit-hole of your own bitterness except your own desperate heart" and "Whatever it was that wouldn't let us go: On Writing and Necessity."

 

Image Credit: The New York Times