Michael Ondaatje; Davis on Proust; "Urban Virgins"

Amitava Kumar describes Michael Ondaatje’s visit to Vassar, where he delivered the annual William Gifford lecture and told students, “What I love about English is that it is revived every fifty years by someone who is not English”—for example, G.V. Desani, with his novel All About H. Haterr. Also check out Ondaatje’s conversation with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in PEN America 7.

This Space calls attention to The Cahiers Series from Sylph Editions, the fifth installment of which will have three linked pieces by Lydia Davis.

First is 'A Proust Alphabet', which gives an account of several words and issues of particular interest, encountered during the author’s recent translating of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way. There follows a short article on the French thinker and novelist Maurice Blanchot, entitled 'The Problem in Summarising Blanchot'. Finally comes a series of dreams and dreamlike moments, recounted in 'Swimming in Egypt: Dreams while Awake and Asleep'. The cahier is accompanied by photographs by Ornan Rotem.

The cahier comes out in a month; in the meantime, you can read Davis’s thoughts on Proust in PEN America 2.

Lastly, as if the new Latin America issue of The Virginia Quarterly Review was not impressive enough on its own, they have also created some fanastic web features, like this interactive map which links to various pieces from the issue-- or this collection of photographs and poetry:

“Urban Virgins” shows a series of paintings by Ana de Orbegoso paired with poems by Odi Gonzales. De Orbegoso has created 5′ tall wearable Spanish paintings of saints and virgins that have been mashed up with photographs of contemporary Peruvian women. Then she has people walk around Cusco, Peru in these costumes, bringing art to the streets.

(And speaking of Latin America, here’s yet another November event: The News from Latin America, hosted by the Overseas Press Club and the National Book Critics Circle, featuring Francisco Goldman, George de Lama, and Peter Kinoy, and hosted by Calvin Sims.)