Last week, Melville House publisher Dennis Johnson announced that he was withdrawing his imprint's books from the Best Translated Book awards because the "predatory and thuggish" Amazon.com is sponsoring the contest. Open Letter publisher Chad Post, who secured the Amazon funding for the prize, has responded to Johnson, writing that the judges may go ahead and award a Melville House book anyway, and wonders if Johnson is "also withdrawing support from PEN America, the 92nd St. Y, and all of these other organizations that have received funding from Amazon."
Novelist Arundhati Roy’s Delhi house was surrounded by protestors who chanted, "Take back your statement, else leave India." Roy is at risk for arrest for saying that the disputed territory of Kashmir was not an integral part of India.
Perhaps impelled by longtime rival Mario Vargas Llosa's recent Nobel Prize win, Gabriel García Márquez is writing a new novel.
Post-punk band Joy Division's look was as influential as their music to scores of bands that followed. Trim dress, minimalist record sleeve design, and rich black-and-white photographs of the dour quartet accentuated their austere sound, conveying an aesthetic that captivated legions of fans looking for an alternative to the excess and posturing in both pop and punk music of the time. In a new book, photographer Kevin Cummins unearths his photos of the band from the late 70s, presenting stark and elegant portraits of the Manchester lads posing in snowy landscapes, playing in bleak practice spaces, and—best of all—conveying the intensity of the band's determined and electric live performances.
Tonight New York's Poets House is hosting an evening with the acclaimed Syrian poet Adonis.
