The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to imprisoned Chinese author and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo. The PEN American Center has been campaigning for Xiaobo to win the prize (and for his release); last December, authors E. L. Doctorow, Don DeLillo, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Edward Albee, A.M. Homes, and Honor Moore gathered on the New York Public Library's steps to rally on his behalf.
More on 2010 Nobel Prize in literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa: the author's first press conference after winning the Nobel; Granta editor John Freeman on why Vargas Llosa was a "phenomenal choice" for the prize; the London Review of Books' compilation of Vargas Llosa reviews; the Paris Review's 1990 interview with the Peruvian author; and from The Guardian, a list of five of his essential novels, and a fanciful telling of why Vargas Llosa slugged Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
In the summer of 2009, authors Justin Taylor and Eva Talmadge asked for submissions on the blog HTML Giant for pictures of literary tattoos. They've collected about 150 of their favorites in a new book, The Word Made Flesh, and recently sat down with Poets & Writers to discuss the project. The book includes five pictures from Shelly Jackson's "Skin," a short story that's being published one tattoo at a time, each word inked onto volunteers from around the world.
This weekend, Comic Con invades New York City, with comic book conventions, events, and exhibitions throughout the metropolis.
