Our next issue, and other notes

Things have gotten busy here as we finish our tenth issue. It’s going to be full of great stuff, including:

A terrific piece of fiction adapted from Colum McCann’s upcoming novel about New York in the 1970s, Let the Great World Spin, which comes out in June (and which is highlighted by a Canongate editor in a rundown of exciting new books; via Conversational Reading). By the way, you can read another adapted portion of the novel in The Paris Review.

An excerpt from the funny, smart, and heartbreaking play “Autobiography of a Terrorist,” by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, whose memoir When Skateboards Will Be Free comes out this month. Read a short interview with Saïd (via Maud Newton).

New fiction by Lydia Davis, Guillermo Fadanelli, Petina Gappah, Etgar Keret, and Hari Kunzru; conversations featuring Umberto Eco, Adam Gopnik, Michael Ondaatje, and Annie Proulx; and much, much more.

Meanwhile, have a look at this article in The National about Saudi Arabian fiction, in which PEN America contributor Yousef Al-Mohaimeed is discussed at some length (via the indispensable Literary Saloon).

And, lastly, watch the complete video of our benefit reading, now up at YouTube. All the readers are terrific, in my biased opinion, but I’ll make two recommendations in particular: Edward Albee and Sarah Ruhl reading from Theremin (12 minutes in), and Nathan Englander reading George Saunders (26 minutes in). Enjoy.

More Etgar Keret

The Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret, who has attended two World Voices festivals, is a favorite of PEN America -- just last week I mentioned his conversation with George Saunders (from PEN America 8: Making Histories) after Deborah Eisenberg read a story of Etgar's (which will appear in PEN America 10) at our first-ever benefit.

Now, Words Without Borders is discussing Etgar in advance of the next Conversation on Great Contemporary Literature, which will focus on his work and feature internationally acclaimed Hebrew translator Miriam Shlesinger in conversation with prolific essayist and novelist (and cinephile) Phillip Lopate (who is on the advisory board of PEN America). The event is at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 5th, at Idlewild Books in NYC.

They'll also be hosting an online book club and are looking for readers to tell them their favorite Keret story. Send submissions to blog@wordswithoutborders.org.

And you should also read Etgar's recent contribution to The New York Times Magazine, pointed out by Maud Newton and Laila Lalami (who, like Etgar, appears in Making Histories).

(Photo above by Beowulf Sheehan.)

Benefit recap

Last night, a varied lineup of terrific writers celebrated the journal and helped us raise money to keep it going. The benefit was recorded, and I’ll link to the audio here after it becomes available. In the meantime, here’s a short recap.

After an introduction from M Mark, the journal’s editor, Francine Prose and Lydia Davis began the evening by reading translated pieces from PEN America 6: Metamorphoses: Prose read “Canned Foreign,” by Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky, and Lydia Davis read “Borges and I,” by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by James Irby. Both Prose and Davis are terrific readers, and they each captured the sly intelligence and wit of their respective readings.

They were followed by Edward Albee and Sarah Ruhl, who together read a comic scene from Petr Zelenka’s play Theremin that was published in PEN America 8: Making Histories. Albee introduced Ruhl as a “fine American dramatist,” then added, “I also write plays,” before launching into his spirited interpretation of Léon Sergeivich Theremin.

Albee and Ruhl were followed by Ron Chernow, who commented briefly on the PEN Prison Writing Program before reading a lyrical excerpt from “Hook Island Traveler,” by Chris Everley, which is in our most recent issue.

Nathan Englander and Deborah Eisenberg came out together -- in symbolic honor of PEN’s commitment to fostering literary fellowhip -- and read pieces by George Saunders (“Realist Fiction”) and Etgar Keret (“Rachamim and the Worm Man (An Evil Story),” which will be in issue #10), two smart and funny writers whose conversation with each other was published in Making Histories.

To close the evening, André Aciman read from “Baghdad, Damascus, Atlanta,” an essay by Ahmed Ali, and Anthony Appiah read two poems by Fady Joudah before thanking everyone for coming and making an eloquent argument for the importance of PEN’s mission and the journal’s role in forwarding it.Great thanks to all the readers and everyone who joined us.

“A Wake-Up Artist”: Celebrating David Foster Wallace

Little, Brown organized a memorial to and celebration of David Foster Wallace this past Thursday at NYU. It was “not a short program,” as Jonathan Franzen noted, adding, “That would not have been fitting.” It was however, quite moving, and often funny—especially, of course, when people read Wallace’s own writing, whether it was fiction or an essay or a letter or notes to his editor.

Donald Antrim read from "Up Simba." Deborah Treisman read from "Derivative Sport in Tornado Alley." Colin Harrison, who assigned and edited some of Wallace’s essays for Harper’s, read from "Getting Away from Already Being Pretty Much Away from It All" and “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” and described what it was like “to be cleverly ridiculed in the pages of one’s own magazine.”

George Saunders described Wallace as a “wake-up artist” and a “celebrationist,” and called him “the first among us.” Don DeLillo spoke of “the offsetting breeze of Dave’s plainsong,” all the colloquial phrases that popped up casually but perfectly throughout his writing. Zadie Smith spoke of Wallace’s work as a gift to us that hangs "like Federer’s serve" between its deliverer and its recipient; he wrote a lot about prayer, she observed.

Gerry Howard called Wallace “the most idealistic of ironists.” Michael Pietsch said Wallace’s relationship to language was “one of the great romances of our times.” Bonnie Nadell mentioned that Wallace was going to write about Obama and rhetoric for GQ, leaving many, I’m sure, thinking about all the work that will never be written (what might he have made of Sarah Palin?). Mark Costello, a college roommate and lifelong friend, spoke of “a mind in splendid overdrive” for whom “humor was a bridge to the world.” And his sister, Amy Wallace-Havens, described an imaginary heaven designed just for her brother, where he can always eat Chocolate Pop Tarts and no one ever says he's “nauseous” when he has an upset stomach.

See also: Sarah Weinman, The New York Times, and the AP.

Notes before the deluge

World Voices kicks off today, with five events, from “Crisis Darfur” with Mia Farrow and Bernard Henri-Levy (co-sponsored by Guernica) to the “Literary Film Feast” (not “fest,” apparently) co-presented by Ratapallax. Then: seven events on Wednesday, twenty-four (!) events on Thursday, fourteen events on Friday…

So, before I (very happily) lose myself in the rushing literary waters, a few notes:

The recipients of this year’s PEN awards have been announced. Among the winners: Cynthia Ozick, Sarah Ruhl, Kimiko Hahn, Dalia Sofer, and many more…

The indispensable Complete Review flags this piece from the Lebanese Daily Star about The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in Iran—which has just issued a statement that writers wishing to be published in Iran must censor themselves. As it happens, we have a great short piece by Iranian novelist and story-writer Shahriar Mandanipour about just this sort of thing in PEN America 8.

A choose-your-own-adventure story from Mohsin Hamid (via Amitava).

Lastly, the PEN gala was last night, and I’ll try to flag some coverage of it later. Toni Morrison gave a stirring acceptance speech for the PEN/Borders Literary Service Award, and a wonderful Iraqi translator who goes by the pseudonym Ahmed Ali spoke movingly about fleeing Iraq and re-locating, eventually, to Atlanta, with the help of PEN’s Larry Siems. There was also a heartbreaking video tribute to this year’s PEN/Barbarba Goldsmith Freedom to Write honoree, Yang Tongyan, who is currently incarcerated in China.

Though not quite so important, another satisfying part of the evening was hearing nice things about the journal from Nathan Englander (who raved about the Etgar Keret stories and the George Saunders piece) and Gary Shteyngart (who described it as “muy caliente”) and Sidney Offit (who praised the Grace Paley tribute), among others. If you haven’t already, check it out (or just subscribe).

Update: Coverage of the gala here, here, here, and here.

Etgar Keret on grammar and hard-ons

Among the riches of PEN America 8 (shortly headed to the printer; subscribe here) is a conversation between George Saunders and Etgar Keret (pictured left in a photo from Time magazine available on Etgar's website). Both writers are smart and hilarious, and they don't disappoint.

The conversation is prefaced by a short, shrewd essay by Saunders and an explosive little Keret story from The Girl on the Fridge (out from FSG in May). It's followed by an older Keret story, "Rabin's Dead."

Here's how the conversation begins:

GEORGE SAUNDERS: I was amazed by your stories, by the quality and quantity of imagination, and the unbelievable overflow of ideas. So I wanted to ask a question that’s probably unfair. Can you pick a story, and talk us through the process—where the seed of the idea was, and how you arrived at the finished story?

ETGAR KERET: Well, there’s one story, I’m not sure I know its name in English correctly. I think it’s “Actually, I Do Have Hard-Ons Lately”? Something like that?

SAUNDERS: Oh yeah. It’s “The Quality of My Hard-Ons is Very Excellent Lately,” I think.

AUDIENCE: “Actually, I’ve Had Some Phenomenal Hard-Ons Lately.”

KERET: That’s it. With that story I can tell you something about the process. I was sitting in a café and somebody with a cell phone at a table nearby said that sentence. He really said, “Actually, I’ve had some phenomenal hard-ons lately.” I looked at him, and he asked for a beer, and then I left. And I kept saying to people I knew, “I was sitting next to this guy, and he said this sentence.” And they’d say, “Um, okay.” And I’d say, “No, no! I really feel that there is something in this sentence, something in the grammar of it.” If he hadn’t said the “actually,” say, it would have been a different sentence, you know?

So I tried to invent this guy in my head. And the first thing that came to mind was that he had an affair with a woman at work. And what makes him feel best about this affair is that whenever they go to dinner, he can ask for the receipt, and it’s tax-deductible because she works with him. So he can cheat on his wife and on the IRS at the same time.

SAUNDERS: Incredible aphrodisiac.

Etgar is coming back to the World Voices festival this year, and you can read more about him here.

Monday Miscellany

Many thanks to the scores of writers and readers who dropped by the PEN booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival. In addition to the wonderful writers listed below, we had unexpected visits from George Saunders and Jonathan Lethem. Mo Willems, left, enthusiastically hawked our wares and entertained the crowd; Mary Gaitskill and Jonathan Lethem, right, chatted with each other as well as our many visitors; and Mohammed Naseehu Ali, center, brought his beautiful family along. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Garth Riske Hallberg nicely captures the general atmosphere.

Among the many other "vendors" at the festival were our friends at CLMP (the Council for Literary Magazines and Presses). Together with the Virginia Quarterly Review, they've recently made available this interesting discussion about the commercial challenges facing literary fiction, featuring Jonathan Burnham, Morgan Entrekin, Jonathan Galassi, and Sonny Mehta, and moderated by Sarah Nelson.

Speaking of VQR, their next issue looks terrific. It's a special issue, "dedicated to the topic of South America in the 21st century," and includes contributions from Daniel Alarcon and the late Roberto Bolaño among other luminaries.

If you're free on Wednesday evening, in New York, and interested in children's literature, don't miss "Dreadful Lies, Peculiar Truths," "a PEN Children’s Book panel discussion featuring Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Susan Kuklin, Robert Lipsyte, and Vera B. Williams."

This panel of prize-winning authors will explore the quandary in which many children’s book writers often find themselves: how do we respect the boundaries, and imaginations, of our young audiences when writing about harrowing topics? How do we portray difficult circumstances without foisting an adult point of view on our readers? Come to this free discussion of these issues and more.