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Saidiya Hartman and many others participate in Schomburg Center Literary Festival

Saidiya Hartman. Photo: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

The 2021 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. The New York Times’ Wesley Morris won for criticism, Louise Erdrich for the novel The Night Watchmen, Marcia Chatelain for the historical work Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Les Payne and Tamara Payne for the biography The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, and Natalie Diaz for the poetry collection Postcolonial Love Poem.

Scribner’s Nan Graham has purchased the memoir Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. According to the publisher, the book recounts the author’s “coming of age as an American Muslim, the daughter of Indian and Pakistani scholars who split their time between Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and the U.K.” The book will also offer an account of her marriage to former congressman Anthony Weiner. It will be released this fall.

At The Guardian, novelist Julian Barnes reflects on realizations he has made as a writer. “You don’t,” he writes, “have to put everything in. There are painters who in old age allow the canvas or the wood to show through their markings. Verdi, in his later years, scored more sparingly; as he put it ‘I learned when not to write notes.’ And I think I learned when not to put in those unnecessary sentences. It’s not a loss of physical energy (though that is also unignorable), more a recognition that you can often do more by saying less. While at the same time inviting the reader to fill in the gaps.”

Universal Pictures is preparing to make She Said, a drama based on the New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and their groundbreaking reporting on the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal, which led to the bestselling book She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement. Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan will star as Kantor and Twohey.

The Schomburg Center Literary Festival begins today and lasts through Saturday, June 19. Participants include Saidiya Hartman, Carol Anderson, Akwaeke Emezi, Ellis Cose, Kiese Laymon, Hanif Abdurraqib, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ben Okri, Clint Smith, and many others. Events will take place on Zoom. You can view a full schedule here.