TODAY: In 1964, Jean-Paul Sartre explains his refusal of the Nobel Prize in Le Figaro, stating he always declined official distinctions and did not want to be “institutionalised.”
- “What I felt was the persistent, undefinable numbness that eventually overtakes you and won’t let go.” André Aciman on struggling to find his place in Rome. | Lit Hub Memoir
- “The literary mind cannot be isolationist.” Read Elif Shafak’s speech from the Opening Ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair. | Lit Hub Craft
- Liz Jackson on why corporate disability literature exists at odds with the principles of disability justice. | Lit Hub Criticism
- Jeff VanderMeer, Ben Okri, André Aciman, and more! These 24 new books are out today. | Lit Hub Reading Lists
- Jane Ciabattari talks to Joshua Mohr about his genre-bending punk fiction: “For better or worse, I’m the only one who could’ve cooked up this peculiar stew.” | Lit Hub In Conversation
- “I have read my father’s book and, as I suspected, much of it is bad.” Read “On Similes,” a poem by Miller Oberman. | Lit Hub Poetry
- Charles Baxter discusses the realm of possibilities (and not using an outline to write) on the First Draft podcast. | Lit Hub Radio
- Tom Clavin considers how hideouts on the Outlaw Trail, one of the last vestiges of the American “wild west,” came to be. | Lit Hub History
- “I really thought you died this time.” Gwen signed. “I know I shouldn’t freak out, but every week I just think, Well, this is it, you know? It’s going to happen, and I’m going to be the one to find her.” Read from Anna Montague’s new novel, How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? | Lit Hub Fiction
- Tad Friend profiles book dealer Glenn Horowitz, who for grifters is “a scholar, and for scholars, he’s a grifter.” | The New Yorker
- “The novels are cramped dioramas of drunk or overworked egoists suffering spiritual crises in classic sixes.” Grayson Scott on Wilfrid Sheed’s Office Politics. | The Baffler
- Adam Morgan takes a hike with Jeff VanderMeer. | Esquire
- “But at its best it can offer a sobering portrait of human folly, bias, humiliation, and desire for connection—those endlessly conflicted feelings that come with the experience.” A primer on the study of travel writing. | JSTOR Daily
- Elias Altman on trauma and healing: “…it sought to answer a question that picked up where the earlier book left off: What does justice look like for survivors of sexual violence?” | n+1
- Poet Ariana Reines talks to Juliette Jeffers about grief, footwear, and travel. | Interview
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