It’s a rough day for fiction writers. Fiction may have lost its power, according to Rod Liddle.
The New York Times says no one’s a winner when everyone gets a prize.
The CIA helped Doctor Zhivago win a Nobel? If the government must engage in treachery, at least it’s in the name of literature.
Elif Shafak is persecuted for “insulting the Turkish identity” because of something her (fictional) character said in The Bastard of Istanbul.
Zadie Smith instructs us all to “Fail Better.”
Here’s a list of the hardest novels to film, beginning with Ulysses.
The Language Log fisks Fisk. The Literary Saloon reviews The Times reviews.
I always knew Gatsby had some fight in him. (via The Elegant Variation)
This is not the year of the dog or the pig in Indianapolis, it’s The Year of Vonnegut. In an interview with the Associated Press, Vonnegut says he has never received “a Pulitzer, National Book Award or anything like that“. The Times makes this sound like a good thing.