WEALTH OF IDEAS

I usually don't talk about textbooks, but this one caught my attention. I remember when I had a meeting with my McGraw-Hill college representative two weeks ago, she said she was sending a book that would impress me, and this one has. It's Literature: Craft and Voice by Nicholas Delbanco (University of Michigan) and Alan Cheuse (National Public Radio), who are prolific creators of literature themselves. Perhaps classroom anthologies prepared by writers have a certain depth to them? Maybe not? But this one makes a powerful statement about the American literary canon, one which is consistent with the present state of literary production in the country. Chapter 9, which deals with "Theme", features Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Nigerian-born writer who is the current McAthur fellow for literature. The case study for the chapter is her story "Cell One", which is included in her recent short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck . Students will get to read...

The Guardian Book Blog reports that this famous Nobel literature laureate has said he is laying down his pen. It is said that he made a similar announcement in the 1970, but resumed writing in the eighties. If you read Marquez as a writer, my friends and I were saying, at a meeting in Sacramento the other day, that you make little progress. I can't tell you how many times I have attempted On Hundred Years of Solitude and ended up putting it down so I could write. Faulkner, Morrison, Ben Okri, Dambudzo Marechera, and a few other writers have the same effect on me, but I am lucky in that I had to read them first for literature classes, hence I could not allow the inspiration to write my own work stop me. I don't know; it's just how it works. Some authors' works are just overwhelmingly rich, and they rub off on you in a very inspiring way. So now the question is, as the Guardian asked, Is his retirement a way to open up room for other, perhaps newer, Latin American writers...