Between Lightness and Shadow: A Conversation with Kapka Kassabova
Kapka Kassabova discusses her latest book, TO THE LAKE.
...moreKapka Kassabova discusses her latest book, TO THE LAKE.
...moreRoy G. Guzmán discusses their debut collection, CATRACHOS.
...moreVikram Paralkar discusses his debut novel, NIGHT THEATER.
...moreLaurette 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’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 […]
...moreIt never occurred to me to try to write poems without the guidance of other poets and poems.
...moreThe 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 […]
...moreThe 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, […]
...moreRewriting the classics has become a stale and risk-averse strategy. But that shouldn’t spoil the fun of our larger culture of remixing.
...more“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 […]
...moreAbout 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.
...moreWriter 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.
...moreChris Lites reviews Max Barry’s LEXICON today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
...moreWill Glovinsky reviews Jorge Luis Borges’ PROFESSOR BORGES today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
...moreProfessor 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.
...moreBesides 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.
...moreToday 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 […]
...moreDoppelgängers, ghosts, and philosophical riddles about the nature of identity make up Javier Marías’ new collection of short fictions.
...moreThis 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.
...moreAbout 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
...moreDzanc 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.” […]
...moreYears 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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