Francesco Pacifico talks to Adam Thirlwell about translating his his new novel, Class. Pacifico is translating the new book into English himself, which he says has given him a chance to rewrite the original. “I’d gained enough distance from Class to realize the Italian version hadn’t been properly edited—there were a lot of moral asperities that I had to tone down because it was a crazily bleak book,” he said. “Now my Italian editor and I think we should publish the new version as a paperback.”
At Hazlitt, Elizabeth Strout discusses politics, stand-up comedy, and her new book, Anything is Possible.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti stands by his company’s decision to publish an unverified intelligence dossier on Donald Trump, and says he plans to “vigorously defend” the website in the resulting defamation lawsuit.
The Ringer is the latest web publication to leave hosting platform Medium. The sports and culture site will be moving to Vox Media later this summer. Creator Bill Simmons will retain ownership and editorial independence, while Vox will assist in ad sales and share profits.
Four more editorial employees of The Observer were fired yesterday, including Dana Schwartz, the author of last year’s open letter to owner Jared Kushner. Other laid off employees include a culture writer, a managing editor, and “a business and tech editor who was hired only in the past month.” The website has yet to fill the editor in chief position after the resignation of Ken Kurson last week.
The Atlantic’s Rosie Gray looks at the challenges faced by former White House communications director Mike Dubke, whose recent resignation was made public yesterday. As a low-profile, establishment Republican, writes Gray, “Dubke never cut much of a figure in a White House populated with outsize personalities and animated by factionalism and conflict.” But Republican strategist Katie Packer Beeson says that there were other reasons for his short tenure. “The best communications director in the business is no match for a boss who thinks they know better, changes their mind and struggles with the truth,” she told Gray. “This is an impossible job and no amount of compensation in the world would make it worth taking.”
