The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project: Andrew Bertaina
“Life is incredibly sad, but it’s also funny, joyful, wonderful, and strange.”
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Posts Tagged: Jorge Luis Borges
The Light Endures: 13th Balloon by Mark Bibbins
Grief begs to be analogized, not to be tamed exactly, but somehow made approachable.
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Between Lightness and Shadow: A Conversation with Kapka Kassabova
Kapka Kassabova discusses her latest book, TO THE LAKE.
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Poetry as Archeology: Talking with Roy G. Guzmán
Roy G. Guzmán discusses their debut collection, CATRACHOS.
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How We Write the Dead: A Conversation with Vikram Paralkar
Vikram Paralkar discusses his debut novel, NIGHT THEATER.
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It’s All Metaphorical: A Conversation with Laurette Folk
Laurette Folk discusses her new collection, Totem Beasts, the role of meditation and dreams in her work, and “seeking some heightened experience in the conscious world.”
...moreCook the Books
Cook’s portraits are usually accompanied by texts distilled from interviews she conducts with her subjects (afterward, she says, because she prefers the shoot itself to remain as meditative as possible). This provides her, and her audience, with a verbal layer of insight not normally accessible to photographers. In the Los Angeles Review Of Books, Michael Kurcfeld […]
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Defeat
It never occurred to me to try to write poems without the guidance of other poets and poems.
...moreThe National Book of America, According to Borges
The English tend to be reserved, reticent, but Shakespeare flows like a great river, he abounds in hyperbole and metaphor—he’s the complete opposite of an English person. Or, in Goethe’s case, we have the Germans who are easily roused to fanaticism but Goethe turns out to be the very opposite—a tolerant man… It’s as if […]
...morePowerhouse Spanish Literary Agent Remembered
The New Yorker has a retrospective on Carmen Balcells, a Spanish literary agent who brought writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Jorge Luis Borges to international fame. Balcells passed away last week at the age of 85. Balcells wasn’t just behind the books being written, she was actually in them—sometimes romanticized, sometimes villainized, […]
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Rewrite, Reboot, Remix
Rewriting the classics has become a stale and risk-averse strategy. But that shouldn’t spoil the fun of our larger culture of remixing.
...moreStep Inside Borges’s Library of Every Book That Will Ever Be Written
“For every rational line or forthright statement there are leagues of senseless cacophony, verbal nonsense, and incoherency.” No, that’s not Jonathan Franzen grumbling about the Internet—it’s a line from “The Library of Babel,” a short story written by Jorge Luis Borges in 1941. The story describes a library containing every 410-page book that ever has […]
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The Last Book I Loved: Seven Nights
About a month ago, I found Seven Nights in a moving box. I sat down on the basement floor, started reading, and got flung back to that amazing train ride from Chicago to Houston.
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The Rumpus Interview with Porochista Khakpour
Writer Porochista Khakpour discusses her new novel, The Last Illusion, her desire to literalize the surreal, the role addiction plays for her characters and narrative, and being a lover of outsider stories.
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Lexicon by Max Barry
Chris Lites reviews Max Barry’s LEXICON today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
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Professor Borges by Jorge Luis Borges
Will Glovinsky reviews Jorge Luis Borges’ PROFESSOR BORGES today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
...moreIn Defense of Translation
Professor and translator, David Bellos celebrates the enlightening task of translation in his new book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything.
...moreMore Multimedia Borges Appreciation
Besides this, here is another, more visually-focused way to appreciate Jorge Luis Borges on the anniversary of his birth, 112 years later. It’s The Mirror Man, a 47-minute documentary on his life and work.
...moreRemembering Jorge Luis Borges
Today would have been the 112th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges, the esteemed Argentine writer who championed the science fiction genre with his depictions of unreality. This is an archived Paris Review interview he did back in July of 1966 that tracks his daily routine, notes the idiosyncrasies of his speech and the epic qualities […]
...moreWhile the Women Are Sleeping
Doppelgängers, ghosts, and philosophical riddles about the nature of identity make up Javier Marías’ new collection of short fictions.
...moreThe Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
This week, Rumpus books reviews two novels, a book of short stories, and a collection of poetry. We’ve also got an interview with Rebecca Solnit, plus essays on Borges, Douglas Rushkoff and Leonardo Sinisgalli.
...moreSearching the Library of Babel
About six months ago, as I was nearing the end of Jorge Luis Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions, I came across the chapter titled “Prologues to The Library of Babel.” The chapter began with a list of authors whose works were selected to fill 33 volumes in The Library of Babel
...moreThe Man Who Invented Borges
Dzanc Books is one of my favorite recently-minted small publishers, and not just because their first two titles were by my brilliant friend Roy Kesey. Just check out their mission statement for an idea why I like them. They have begun publishing an annual anthology, modeled on the Pushcart Prize, that collects the “Best of the Web.” […]
...moreTHE EYEBALL, The Rumpus DVD Column: #24 Nicolas Roeg’s First Five Films
Years ago I happened upon a series of arresting images on cable. There was a young Mick Jagger cavorting in a bath tub with two svelte beauties. A child wearing a fake mustache. A still image of Jorge Luis Borges rising out of a gunshot wound to the head.
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