paper trail

Mar 16, 2012 @ 4:00:00 am

Roberto Bolano

Amanda Knox, the American student who was accused of murdering her British roommate in Italy, has signed a seven-figure book deal with HarperCollins, but she won’t have the first word. Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend, has sold his own book about the murder trial and acquittal, the not-so-subtly titled Presumed Guilty: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox, to Simon & Schuster. Sollecito’s book will appear this fall, clearly looking to get a jump on Knox’s title, due out sometime next year.

Congratulations to Artforum on releasing its fantastic new iPhone app! Everybody should download it immediately.

A new collection of David Foster Wallace essays, Of Flesh and Not, will be released this fall.

November 13 is the release date for the next “new” Bolaño, notes blogger and critic Scott Esposito. Bolaño’s work features a number of recurring characters (including the author’s stand-in Arturo Belano), and Woes of the True Policeman—his final, unfinished novel—focues on two figures from 2666: Amalfitano and Arcimboldi.

Tin House attempts to answer a somewhat loaded question: “Why do we hate short stories?”.

Following the recent popularity of female-targeted erotic novels, HarperCollins UK is launching its own erotica imprint, Mischief Books, with the tag line "private pleasures with a hand-held device."

John Barr, the current and inaugural president of the super-wealthy Poetry Foundation, has announced his plans to retire.

South Korean writer Kyung-sook Shin has won the Man Asian Literary Prize for her novel, Please Look After Mom, making her the first woman to win the $30,000 award.