By Rachel Sugar

“The world may be flat for Thomas Friedman, but it’s a blur for anyone who wanted to read books from around the world in recent years,” says Granta editor (and sometime-Newcity critic) John Freeman. Only three percent of books published annually in the US are works in translation, leaving English-language readers with access to a tiny fraction of world literature. Last fall, though, the Britain-based publication used its “Best of Young Novelists” franchise to attack what Freeman calls this “literary parochialism” head-on: in November, Granta’s “Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists” issue became the first-ever foreign-language edition of the magazine, published first in Spanish out of Barcelona under the direction of Granta en espanol co-founders and editors Valerie Miles and Aurelio Major, with an English translation of the issue close behind.

This week, Freeman, Miles and a handful of the Spanish literary lights are making their way cross-country for “Building Bridges: Spanish and English Writers in Conversation,” a literary tour cosponsored by the Spain-USA Foundation and the Embassy of Spain. At the Instituto Cervantes of Chicago, the Granta crew—Freeman and Miles, plus contributors Andres Barba, Javier Montes and Alberto Olmos—will be joined by American novelist and “Best European Fiction” series editor Aleksandar Hemon. Read the rest of this entry »

Illustration: Pamela Wishbow

A strange and unpleasant wind blows through the literary land. Our obsession with technocultural toys, whether iPhones, iPads or Kindles, makes the foundation of thought almost since thought was recorded, that is ink on paper, seem increasingly destined to be twittered into obsolescence. And it’s not just mere media frenzy, either. Massive upheaval among major publishers these last few years has left some of Chicago’s finest writers stranded in a strange land: that is, the work is finished, but no one is around to put it out. Who knows, maybe in two years when this version of Lit 50 returns, some, if not all, of our authors will be publishing mostly, if not entirely, in the digital realm. If that’s the case, let’s enjoy an old-fashioned book or two while we can. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

You can always count on Columbia College’s Story Week to provide some against-the-grain programming—its annual “Literary Rock ‘n’ Roll” evening, traditionally held at Metro, is usually the highlight of the festival. (Though one could imagine Joyce Carol Oates, this year, would be tough to beat.) Tonight features three authors—”Love & Obstacles” and “The Lazarus Project” scribe Aleksandar Hemon, pretty much the face of Chicago lit these days; Bonnie Jo Campbell, who penned the excellent 2009 short story collection “American Salvage”; and local crime author Marcus Sakey, whose most recent novel, “The Amateurs,” is a sharp, gritty read that you could take down in one sitting. On top of the live words, The Bread and Puppet Theater perform, and Joe Shanahan and Don De Grazia spin. Did I mention it’s free? Yeah, it’s free. (Tom Lynch)

March 18 at Metro, 3730 N. Clark, (773)549-0203, 6pm. Free.

By Tom Lynch

Remarkably, this has never been done before.

Taking inspiration from the Houghton Mifflin “Best” series, Dalkey Archive Press launches a new, unbelievably ambitious series of its own, “Best European Fiction,” and its inaugural edition for 2010 is edited by Chicago’s own Aleksandar Hemon. Attempting to solve the well-known literary problem of Americans not reading—nor being exposed to—literature from other countries, this anthology includes thirty-five short stories and novel excerpts from thirty different European countries, aiming to destroy the invisible shield that prevents such material from being translated into English and released in this country.

Dalkey Archive Press has been fighting the good fight for years in trying to get European authors delivered to American readers, so it comes as no surprise that this anthology is bulky, geographically expansive and features a selection of authors who, to put it bluntly, no one has ever heard of. Alasdair Gray, from Scotland, and Julian Rios, from Spain, have probably the largest audience among Americans—but even among bookworms, their audience is still tragically small. In that way, “Best European Fiction” is not only an introduction to the work of other countries, it’s also a view through the eyes of literary strangers, which makes it all the more compelling. To say the collection “transcends boundaries” would be insufferably predictable and downright cheesy, but perhaps there isn’t a better, or more important, way to praise it. Read the rest of this entry »

Top 5 Books
“Chronic City,” Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday)
“War Dances,” Sherman Alexie (Grove Press)
“Generosity: An Enhancement,” Richard Powers (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux)
“Ruins,” Achy Obejas (Akashic Books)
“Inherent Vice,” Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press)
—Tom Lynch

Top 5 Local Books
“Ruins,” Achy Obejas (Akashic Books)
“Her Fearful Symmetry,” Audrey Niffenegger (Scribner)
“How to Hold a Woman,” Billy Lombardo (OV Books)
“The Way Through Doors,” Jesse Ball (Vintage)
“The Adventures of Cancer Bitch,” S.L. Wisenberg (University of Iowa Press)
—Tom Lynch Read the rest of this entry »

Granta, the literary magazine founded by Cambridge University students in 1889, has a long and storied history of publishing political material as well as the work of several writers. It was relaunched in 1979 as a platform for new writers, and reworked again in 2007 with new editor Jason Cowley. Alex Clark, the magazine’s first female editor, took over for Cowley after he left, and when Smith stepped down, the magazine’s American editor, John Freeman, a frequent Newcity contributor, took her position.

Granta’s fall issue, number 108, is Chicago-themed, and the marvelous collection features entries from Aleksandar Hemon, Alex Kotlowitz, Neil Steinberg, Richard Powers, Sandra Cisneros, Stuart Dybek and more. Don DeLillo offers a brief introductory essay to a Nelson Algren piece, and Chris Ware did the issue’s cover. A photo essay by Camilo Jose Vergara is included and provides an intermission to the text. This collection serves as a packaged insight into what Chicago means—how it feels to live here, be from here, exist within a city sometimes difficult to love yet impossible to resist. I chatted with Freeman over email to get some of his thoughts on the upcoming issue. Read the rest of this entry »

By Tom Lynch

Early Sunday evening and Logan Square’s hipster hotspot The Whistler is sprinkled with patrons, some sipping the bar’s unique summertime cocktails, others just a PBR, please. The Orange Alert Reading Series takes place here roughly every third Sunday of the month and tonight’s lineup consists of “How to Hold a Woman” author Billy Lombardo, plus Andrew Farkas, Tim Hall and West Virginian Scott McClanahan. Founder and emcee Jason Behrends takes to the stage and thanks the modest crowd for coming. “I know it’s hard to come out to a bar at six on a Sunday,” he admits into the microphone. A handful of uninterested drinkers respectfully head out to the patio as to not disrupt the reading with their conversation. For the next hour, the only sounds you can hear are the author’s expressive voices and the air conditioner kicking on and off. Even the bartenders mix the drinks quietly.

“I’m definitely optimistic about the landscape in general,” Behrends says of the current place of literary events in Chicago, a day later over the phone. Behrends began his Orange Alert venture in 2006 with a Web site, orangealert.net, featuring interviews with writers, musicians and artists, then launched Orange Alert Press in March of 2008. The reading series began last November. “There are a lot of reading series in town,” he says, “but even though there are ten or twelve that I know of, I felt that there still could be one more.” Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The Bookslut Reading Series continually offers compelling lineups of authors, and when you mix that with all the beer for sale at Andersonville’s Hopleaf,  you got a lit lover’s wet dream. Tonight, J.C. Hallman reads from his work—his new short-story collection “The Hospital for Bad Poets” questions identity, philosophy and existence as a whole in both accessible and specific ways. Marc Phillips reads as well; his “The Legend of Sander Grant” mixes magical realism and humor and has earned comparisons to John Irving’s work. National Book Award finalist Jean Thompson reads from her latest collection, “Do Not Deny Me,” and, finally, “The Lazarus Project” author Aleksandar Hemon—whose new assembly of stories, “Love and Obstacles,” seems to improve in the mind with time—reads from his work. (Tom Lynch)

July 15 at Hopleaf Bar, 5148 N. Clark, (773)793-9488, at 7:30pm.

Dalkey is publishing "Brecht at Night," an Estonian novel by Mati Unt this month

In an effort to get its titles into more outlets, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s nonprofit press Dalkey Archive Press has signed on with W.W. Norton, which will take over sales and distribution. “We’ve been working on some more high-profile types of projects that we felt Norton, with its great international sales force, could do a better job with than we could on our own,” Martin Riker, Dalkey’s associate director, says. “We will continue to operate as an autonomous entity in terms of editorial, marketing, publicity and anything else. Norton will be an important extension of what we already do, but it won’t have any effect on the mission of Dalkey Archive Press. As a nonprofit press, we have a mission—to make the best works of modern and contemporary literature from all over the world available to English-language readers. Norton will help with that.” Read the rest of this entry »

Roughly 300 members of the publishing world and general public fill the seats of the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall to hear Jacob Weisberg, editor-in-chief of the online publishing company Slate Group, and author Aleksandar Hemon speak with Victoria Lautman about the future of print. The three sit facing the audience in separate leather library chairs on a small stage as they start off discussing the cause for fears of the possible “dumbing down” of writing and literacy.

“Do you connect new forms of delivery with literacy and apprehension?” Lautman asks the two. Teaching writing is extensive, Weisberg says. A few years ago, he recalls to the audience, it seemed people came out of college not quite understanding it. Now things like blogging and text messaging have allowed people to practice how to write and show their personality in fewer words. Read the rest of this entry »