“Some of the authors, devout Muslims, speak out against child marriage and human trafficking, while others advise how to please husbands or offer escapist tales where the impoverished heroine finds love, wealth and a husband.”
Could Korean Lit Be The Next Big Thing?
Ed Park takes a look at a new series of fiction in translation – “in all its strangeness and variety, from the nineteen-thirties to the present” – from Dalkey Archive Press.
Pond Scum: Thoreau Was A Dishonest, Narcissistic Prig And ‘Walden’ Is ‘Cabin Porn’
Kathryn Schulz: “In [the popular] image, Thoreau is our national conscience: the voice in the American wilderness, urging us to be true to ourselves and to live in harmony with nature. This vision cannot survive any serious reading of Walden. The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world.”