Soft Skull News

Some stuff that came up while the blog was down that I felt I couldn't quite let pass without comment.

Delia Falconer's The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers was a finalist for the Western Writers of America SPUR Award for Best Short Novel (The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman won and The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion by Loren D. Estleman was the other finalist...)

Claro's Electric Flesh, as translated by Brian Evenson was likewise a finalist for the French-American Foundation and the Florence Gould Foundation Annual Translation Prize for Fiction (won by Sandra Smith for her translation of Suite Française by Irène Némirovski, no shame in that...)

Great interview with Lynne Tillman on 3AM magazine and another nice piece on American Genius A Comedy on Boldtype

Seen by Peter Manseau in the Washington Post's Home section, atop the coffee table of the house of former Post editor Ben Bradlee and his wife Sally Quinn—A Good War is Hard to Find.

A three-fer from Bookslut: Colleen Mordor on A Good War is Hard to Find; Jessica Tierney on The After-Death Room, and John Zuarino with the very first English-language interview with African rock-star-in-the-making writer Alain Mabanckou.

And a great new magazine: Mumble.

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We've a few folks doing a bunch of events at the PEN World Voices Festival so, in addition to telling you about their panels (schedule below), we're also co-hosting a little shindig. Come one, come all, etc...

Please join Soft Skull Press, Transition Magazine, the German Book Office, and French Publishers Agency in celebrating PEN World Voices festival authors Dorothea Dieckmann and Alain Mabanckou, and their respective Soft Skull books Guantanamo and African Psycho.

Wednesday April 25, 9—11pm
Beauty Bar
241 E. 14th Street (between 2nd & 3rd)

Also, the schedule of events for Alain and Dorothea and Wayne Koestenbaum (who didn't have as far to travel so he doesn't get a party, sorry Wayne) during the Festival follows.

Conversation: Alain Mabanckou & Dany Laferrière, with Anderson Tepper — Wednesday, 4/25, 1pm
Location: La Maison Française of NYU, 16 Washington Mews
Participants: Dany Laferrière, Alain Mabanckou, Anderson Tepper

Town Hall Readings: Writing Home —Wednesday, 4/25, 8pm
Location: Town Hall, 123 West 43rd St.
Participants: Don DeLillo, Kiran Desai, Neil Gaiman, Nadine Gordimer, Alain Mabanckou, Steve Martin, Salman Rushdie, Pia Tafdrup, Tatyana Tolstaya, Saadi Youssef.

Multiple Passports: Writers on Homeland and Identity —Thursday, 4/26, 1pm
Location: Lang Recital Hall, Hunter College, 695 Park Ave.
Participants: Alain Mabanckou, Henrik Nordbrandt, Pia Tafdrup, Adriaan van Dis, with Ian Buruma.

Dirty Wars — Thursday, 4/26, 7pm
Location: Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St
Participants: Mark Danner, Dorothea Dieckmann, Arnon Grunberg, Rose Styron, and others.

Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers —Thursday, 4/26, 7.30pm
Location: President’s Room, Columbia University, Faculty House, 400 West 117th St.
Participants: Ma Jian, Heidi Julavits, Dany Laferrière, Alain Mabanckou, Marilynne Robinson; moderated by Margo Jefferson.

Mixing Art and Politics — Saturday, 4/28, 12pm
Location: Instituto Cervantes, 211-215 East 49th St.
Participants: Dorothea Dieckmann, Almudena Grandes, Janne Teller, Saul Williams, moderated by Sam Tanenhaus.

Sex and Danger — Sunday, 4/29, 4–5:30 p.m.
Location: New York Public Library, Celeste Bartos Forum: 5th Ave. & 42nd St.
Participants: Tinling Choong, Camelia Entekhabifard, Dany Laferrière, Edmund White; moderated by Wayne Koestenbaum

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The following from John Freeman, President of the National Book Critics Circle. Needless to say, we've signed.

I've started an online petition to protest the AJC's decision to
eliminate the book editor job (and with it Teresa Weaver). Here's the
link.

http://www.petitiononline.com/atl2007/petition.html

Would you please sign this ASAP and forward it to as many people as
possible? I think if we can up with many, many signatures this would
get the Cox executives' attention.

Yrs,

JF

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been struggling these past few days with how to deal with the fact that A. 33 are dead in Virginia and B. we publish a book that deals with why these things happen.

For the first few days (during which I was on London at the London Intl Book Fair), I decided to lay low. But when I got back, and started to hear the US media, rather than the UK media, I got progressively more pissed off, and decided that, since this book is a necessary polemical and astringent corrective amidst the sanctimonious pabulum of what passes for analysis, I'm drawing to try to draw people's attention to it, and damn the torpedoes.

Jan Frel at Alternet just had the author in question, Mark Ames, do a piece on the shootings. When I checked it out at 10:10am it has 63 comments; when I went back 15 minutes later to get the URL for this post, it had 77, a few seconds ago I refreshed as I was writing this, there were 86...so some folks out there care to have this perspective.

Media: "Cho Seung-Hui did it because he was crazy and evil." History: "Schoolyard massacres are rebellions against oppressive and bullying environments by students who can't take it anymore."

Another rampage massacre, this time the worst ever. Which means another fake attempt at trying to understand this uniquely American crime—these interminable rage killing sprees in our workplaces and our schoolyards.

What makes the Virginia Tech massacre more horrifying isn't just the body count but the reaction of the living: The official fake soul-searching is more idiotic than ever, revealing, if anything, a culture that is so insanely delusional and incapable of self-reflection that it almost makes these rampage massacres seem relatively natural.

The footage from Seung-Hui's "media manifesto" has played on cable news on an endless loop for days now, and no one has considered the merits of his grievances—except to cast them as proof positive that Cho Seung-Hui was one sick guy.

Of all the idiotic reactions, so far none tops an article posted on MSNBC.com, written by an "investigative reporter" with the ill-begotten name of "Bill Dedman." His investigation allegedly revealed that Cho Seung-Hui, the shooter, displayed alleged classic warning signs of a rampage shooting. Citing a landmark Secret Service study of schoolyard rampage massacre, Dedman observed, "In more than three out of four school shootings, the attacker had made no threat against the schoolteachers or students. But most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help. The attackers posed a threat even though they hadn't made a threat."

In other words, if you think someone's weird, but he hasn't threatened anyone, he's a threat.

There are two very serious flaws in Dedman's investigation. First, if the profile of a schoolyard rampager is someone who doesn't threaten anyone but who raises suspicions, then America will have to open up a new GULAG archipelago to hold all of the millions of kids who fit this description. But the second flaw is even more serious: the Secret Service study Dedman cites draws exactly the opposite conclusion: There is no way to profile a potential schoolyard killer. That was what was so shocking about the report. Everyone who has studied these rage massacres knows it. Everyone but journalists like Dedman, that is.

What Dedman's article reveals isn't just the sloppy work of a typical mainstream hack but, rather, of a culture desperate for an easy explanation for the massacre—one that doesn't implicate it in the crime.

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Le Monde reports that our author Soha Bechara (Resistance) is being harassed by the Swiss ultra-right.

(English translation at the Monthly Review website.)

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A rather cool festival/forum being put together in Ghana for Summer of 2008

Pan African Literary ForuM: GHANA
July 3-18, 2008

Jeffery Renard Allen, Director
Arthur Flowers, Co-Director
Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Program Director
Sean Hill, Administrative Manager

Week-long Workshops in Accra and a week-long Retreat and Master Classes in the Asante city of Kumasi

Faculty:
Colin Channer, Junot Diaz, Niq Mhlongo—Fiction
Kwame Dawes, Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Jabbeh Wesley—Poetry
E. Ethelbert Miller, Binavanga Wainaina—Creative Nonfiction
Sheree Thomas—Speculative Fiction
Sapphire—Performance Poetry

Special Guests Include:
Chimamanda Adichie, Mohammed Nassehu Ali, Jeffery Renard Allen, Doreen Baingana, Calvin Baker, Sherwin Bitsui, Walt Cummins, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Hope Eghagha, Arthur Flowers, Ntoi Edjabe, Nina Foxx, Mary Gaitskill, James Gibbons, Manu Herbstein, Duriel Harris, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, Major Jackson, Tyheimba Jess, Mat Johnson, Josip Novakovich, Bayo Ojikutu, Ed Pavlic, Caryl Phillips, Robert Polito, Francine Prose, Nelly Rosario, Lore Segal, Matthew Sharpe, Terese Svoboda, Peter Trachtenberg, Eisa Ulen, Quincy Troupe, and John Edgar Wideman

Craft Classes and Lectures
Panels, Programs, and Consultations with faculty, agents, editors, and publishers
Tours and Special Cultural Events

Award Competitions: Special Competition for emerging writers from Africa and the African Diaspora
Judges:
Junot Diaz—Fiction
Quincy Troupe—Poetry
Meri Nana-Ama Danquah—Creative Nonfiction
Winners will receive a Free Trip to the Conference and publication in The Literary Review and in a special insert of A Public Space

Open Competition for anyone who wishes to submit work
Judges:
John Edgar Wideman—Fiction
Terese Svoboda—Poetry
Josip Novakovich—Creative Nonfiction
Winners will receive a Free Trip to the Conference and publication in The Literary Review

Financial Aid, Scholarships and Fellowships Available

For more information, write us at:
Pan African Literary Forum
544, 511 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10011-8436

Email us at:
admin@panafricanliteraryforum.com
JeffAllen@panafricanliteraryforum.com
Aflowers@panafricanliteraryforum.com
Seanhill@panafricanliteraryforum.com

Phone us at: (917) 834-1852
Contest guidelines and other information at:
http://www.panafricanliteraryforum.com

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Right here. And check out all his interviews, they're great and not behind a pay wall.

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 04:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Never thought a Soft Skull book would make the Fashionista blog...but if you're going to publish an epic poem based on the Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova, that's what you actually got to be hoping for.

Posted by Richard Eoin Nash at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)