Cuban Science Fiction, Thomas Mann’s House for Sale, and More

by
Staff
8.26.16

Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today’s stories:

“He writes with a poet’s eye, blends the colloquial with the fantastic with the gospel in almost masterful ways that create something lush.” Poet Danez Smith—along with writers Morgan Parker, Darnell Moore, and Brit Bennett—considers the literary aesthetic of musician Frank Ocean. (Fader)

At the New Republic, novelist Paul La Farge examines the history of Cuban science fiction through the works of authors Agustín de Rojas and José Miguel Sánchez, who writes under the pseudonym Yoss.

Author Jesmyn Ward talks with Bookforum about editing The Fire This Time, a new collection of essays by black writers on race in America.

The house of late novelist Thomas Mann in Pacific Palisades, California, is up for sale, and could potentially be torn down. (Paris Review)

Poet Max Ritvo has died from cancer at age twenty-five. Ritvo’s poems and essays have been published widely in places including the New Yorker, the Boston Review, and Poetry. Ritvo’s debut collection, Four Reincarnations, will be published by Milkweed Editions in December. Daniel Slager of Milkweed remembers receiving Ritvo’s manuscript for the first time. (New York Times)

To celebrate Women in Translation month, the PEN blog features a list of books translated by women that have won the PEN Translation Prize.

Take a moment to gaze at these images of the “world’s most beautiful libraries,” courtesy of Wallpaper magazine.