Laila LalamiAuthor Laila Lalami's blog. Musings on books, culture, and politics.AWS is Back- June 27, 2008 I had always thought that Heinemann had stopped work on its African Writers Series, but Percy Zvomuya of the Mail & Guardian reports that the publishers want the series to continue, and are considering new manuscripts. They are also reissuing eight of their back titles as classics editions: Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and No Longer at Ease, Bessie Head's Maru and When Rain Clouds Gather, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's A Grain of Wheat, Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, Buchi Emecheta's.http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005114.html In the Rainbow Nation- June 26, 2008 I found Jenny Diski's LRB essay on post-apartheid South Africa to be thoughtful and well-observed, without being cynical. I don't really want to excerpt any part of it; just read it all here. Doesn't political change, no matter how hard people fight for it, always end up being different than anyone expected Minds don't change as quickly as governments do. A useful reminder, I think, for our electoral season.http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005113.html On Censorship- June 25, 2008 I've always been curious about the apparatus that makes book censorship possible, so I avidly read Youssef Aït Akdim's article in Tel Quel magazine on "The Forbidden Books" in Morocco. There is apparently an office in the ministry of communications (sic) called the "service for foreign publications." All distributor requests for book imports have to transit through this office. If a book title is deemed suspicious, either because "it is suspected of sedition" or deals with a...http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005112.html (Re) Discover The Union- June 24, 2008 Someone sent me (thank you, whoever you are) an ARC of State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. It's an anthology of original writing on all fifty states of the union, ranging from personal essays to cultural commentary, from travel vignettes to cartoons. There are some intriguing pairings: Ha Jin wrote about Georgia and Saïd Sayrafiezadeh got South Dakota. Others are perhaps to be expected: The amazing Joe Sacco did something on Oregon,...http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005110.html Warren Wilson- June 23, 2008 In about ten days, I'll be going to Asheville, North Carolina to teach in Warren Wilson's MFA program. I know nothing about Asheville, but apparently F. Scott Fitzgerald once lived there (!), its minor league baseball team is called the "Asheville Tourists" (!!), and the average high temperature in July is 84 degrees (!!!).http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005109.html Quotable: Constantine Cavafy- June 20, 2008 A poem for this Friday: "Waiting for the Barbarians," by Constantine Cavafy: What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum The barbarians are due here today. Why isn't anything going on in the senate Why are the senators sitting there without legislating Because the barbarians are coming today. What's the point of senators making laws now Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating. Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting enthroned at the..http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005104.html Department of WTF- June 18, 2008 Remember Kanan Makiya Aside from predicting that American troops would be "greeted with sweets and flowers" in Iraq, he's apparently also moved more than 7 million pages of records from the Baath party to the United States, where they will be housed in the Hoover Institution at Stanford. The Iraqi National archivist Saad Eskander wants the looted papers back in Baghdad, where they belong, but who's listening to him Neither the occupying forces nor their handmaidens in Iraq.http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005107.html Ansari on The Office- June 16, 2008 Producers of The Office have announced that Aziz Ansari has joined the cast for their spin-off show. I am unreasonably excited about this--can't wait to see what he'll do.http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/005102.html |