Writers Should Explore
“If that makes things hard for the writer, it also makes things hard, in a different way, for the reader. On the one hand we are used to this being political territory, but on the other we want something very different from a novel than what we get from the newspapers: we want imaginative understanding, not political positions; we want to get close to a fictional individual rather than stand in judgment over a real group; we want the challenge of speculation rather than the reassurance of certainty. We want art, not news, at a time when news seems to be drowning out art,” writes Natasha Walter for the Guardian. She discusses how writers such as Salman Rushdie, John Updike, Martin Amis, Joseph Conrad, Doris Lessing, and Don Delillo delved into topics that were politically unpleasant. At the same time, you might want to read what the blog Alt.Muslim has to say about Updike’s Terrorist. It’s a nice counterweight to Walter’s piece.
Who Are the Young Writers of Today?
The blog Critical Mass reviews an NBCC panel which discussed this subject this past weekend. The authors they mentioned include David Mitchell, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Tom Bissell, Nathan Englander, Emily Barton, Stephen Elliot, Kelly Link, Daniel Alacon, Susan Choi, Allegra Goodman, Curtis Sittenfeld, Arthur Phillips, Daniel Handler, Julie Orringer, Benjamin Kunkel, Gary Shteyngart, Chris Abani, Dave Eggers, Colson Whitehead, and Whitney Terrell.
Why Can’t Writers Cross Genres?
“Why do so many brilliant fiction writers turn out atrocious dramas, and so many good playwrights produce bad novels? That’s the question Philip Hensher asks on the newly produced Exiles by James Joyce. Although I do wonder about his point of view. Novelist Sarah Schulman continues to write novels and plays, both rewarding and enriching.
