Quarterly Conversation

The Kamila Shamsie Interview

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:20:10 +0000

Kamila Shamsie is the author of four novels, including Kartography and Broken Verses. Her most recent novel, Burnt Shadows, was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize in fiction. I spoke with Kamila recently about this compelling, eye-opening novel, and her decisions to set the book in several very different countries. Shamsie is a generous, expansive [...]

Mouroir by Breyten Breytenbach

admin — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:48:30 +0000

Mouroir, Breyten Breytenbach. Archipelago Press. 280pp, $15.00. Imprisoned for sedition, Breyten Breytenbach found himself mirroring Samuel Beckett’s Molloy. After managing to make it back home in order to die, Molloy tells his story on manuscript pages that are snatched from his grasp as soon as he fills them. Breytenbach, who had been living in exile in [...]

Janet Frame Reframed

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:20:30 +0000

What is the difference between fiction and autobiography? Elizabeth Wadell looks at author Janet Frame's new posthumous novel, too personal to publish in her lifetime, and considers how it compares to the source material as found in her celebrated autobiography.

From The Museum of Eterna’s Novel

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:48:01 +0000

Long hailed as an avant-garde classic and precursor to Borges, The Museum of Eterna's Novel will finally be available in English next January from Open Letter Books. We offer a preview of what's to come.

From the Editors: On the Proliferation of Posthumous Publication

admin — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:11:07 +0000

The dead, we fear, will never have the last word on their unpublished works. So we turn our editorial energies to a bigger question: should they?

Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Campbell McGrath

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:56:42 +0000

Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Campbell McGrath. Ecco. 128pp, $23.00.. Between 1804 and 1806, the thirty-odd members of Merriwether Lewis and William Clark’s Corps of Discovery traveled more than 8,000 miles of terrain in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. During that time, they met with countless indigenous groups, hunted grizzly bears, endured [...]

Tinkers by Paul Harding

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:52:59 +0000

Tinkers, Paul Harding. Bellevue Literary Press. 192pp, $14.95. Paul Harding’s Tinkers meticulously examines life and death, its precision often mirroring that of the protagonist as he performs his vocation of repairing clocks. The novel, although slim, packs much detail into its tightly wound prose: three generations of a hard-scrabbled New England family are shared over 191 [...]

Cormac McCarthy’s Paradox of Choice: One Writer, Ten Novels, and a Career-Long Obsession

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 02:26:29 +0000

Discussed in this essay: • The Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy. Vintage. $13.95. 256 pp. • Outer Dark, Cormac McCarthy. Vintage. $13.95. 256 pp. • Child of God, Cormac McCarthy. Vintage. $13.95. 206 pp. • Suttree, Cormac McCarthy. Vintage. $14.95. 480 pp. • Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy. Vintage. $14.95. 352 pp. • All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy. Vintage. $14.95. 320 pp. • [...]

Cormac McCarthy’s Paradox of Choice: One Writer, Ten Novels, and a Career-Long Obsession

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:24:49 +0000

Cormac McCarthy’s Paradox of Choice: One Writer, Ten Novels, and a Career-Long Obsession

admin — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:19:36 +0000