ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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Toni Morrison Thought This Woman Changed Black Literature Forever. She Left Public View 23 Years Ago.

In 1975, aged 25, Gayl Jones shook the American literary world with her novel Corregidora. After more books and a turbulent personal life, Jones assumed a Salinger-style public silence in 1998. Imani Perry examines Jones's biography and writing to understand why. - The New York Times Magazine

Why All Those Blobby Book Covers?

This design trend, well into its third or fourth year in the major publishing houses, has attracted plenty of nicknames and attendant discourse online—culture critic Jeva Lange calls it “blobs of suggestive colors,” while writer Alana Pockros calls it the “unicorn frappuccino cover.” - Print

Want To Learn A New Language As An Adult? It’s Much Easier If You Learn Alongside The Kids

"New research suggests that it's not as difficult as experts previously thought for adults to pick up a new language. Immersing yourself in a new language as a family might just be one of the most effective — and easiest — ways to learn a new language." - National Geographic

Uh Oh – A Looming Book Shortage?

 “This fall, the global publishing business can expect disruption in shipping, increases in costs throughout the supply chain, shortages in consumables used for packing and shipping, and shortages in manufacturing supplies for books and printed matter." - Jane Friedman

Preserving The Cree And Ojibwe Languages — With TikTok

"Combining humor, everyday language use, and relatable situations, these videos" — from the Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre in Winnipeg — "are contributing to making the language accessible, especially during the ongoing pandemic when many people were at home." - Global Voices

Is Literature “Technology”?

Angus Fletcher claims that fairy tales, free indirect discourse, autobiography, and such are “technology,” and that their primary purpose is medicinal, so that neuroscience should supplant traditional criticism. - Los Angeles Review of Books

Wole Soyinka On Publishing His First Novel In 48 Years

"It is meant to indict us also, the governed, as a people who have jettisoned the humane values that that same society impressed on my upbringing. Yes, I would give much to bludgeon Nigeria into accepting that Black Lives do Matter!" - Los Angeles Times

16th-Century Documents Stolen From Mexico’s National Archives Have Been Recovered

The rescue of these manuscripts "comes amid a strong effort by the Mexican government to stop the international trafficking of national heritage objects, with mixed results." Security and physical conditions at the National Archives have been particularly bad. - ARTnews

What Happened To Books? Well…

"They became tedious redoubts for the pious certainties of a besieged, over-educated and underemployed intellectual class dissatisfied with – and powerless to change – the mindless, capital-driven popular." - Frieze

What Is This Magical Streaming Gift?

It's a £5 video of Olivia Colman performing a translated lecture by Elena Ferrante, of course. - LitHub

The Georgia Review Editors Explain The Point Of Literary Journals

"I'm really into thinking about the literary journal as a clandestine space for a community’s periodic meetings, a small public within a public whose concerns and milieu grow idiosyncratic through collective interaction over time." - LitHub

Gatsby Is Meant To Critique The Rich, Right?

Great Gatsby seems to inspire something that isn't exactly critique of the wealthy. "I parted my hair in the middle and put on a fake plummy accent and bought some white button-down shirts and white khaki pants at the thrift store downtown and wore them all the time." - LitHub

The Battle For Good Sentences

A sentence might sound promising in your head but crumble during its translation to the page. It might get maimed when shaved or become disfigured when tweaked, rejigged, or retrofitted. It might not be compatible with its neighbors. - Hedgehog Review

Updating Books For The TikTok Era

Amazon’s Kindle Vella spotlights the growing market for episodic stories, designed for mobile devices, unfolding as larger narratives over time. - GeekWire

E.M. Forster’s Most Influential Novel Was The One He Couldn’t Publish

As it circulated in manuscript (it was only published posthumously) from the author to Christopher Isherwood and onward, Maurice "became first an open secret and eventually the center of a sort of private reading club for gay male writers, critics, and friends, for decades." - The New Republic

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