August 2012

Nicole Krauss Headlines KR Literary Festival

Novelist Nicole Krauss will deliver the Denham Sutcliffe Memorial Lecture at the sixth annual Kenyon Review Literary Festival in Gambier, Ohio on November 10.

“Nicole Krauss is among the most talented and ambitious writers of a younger generation,” said KR Editor David Lynn. “She is ambitious not only in the sense of technical achievement and critical acclaim, but in tackling the largest human challenges of history, identity, and love.”

Why We Chose It

By Daniel Torday, Book Review Editor

A Review of Christopher Boucher’s How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive

Much was made in literary circles of the fact that a scene in the first episode of the HBO series Girls—which you probably consider the best show on television this year, especially if you didn’t watch the second series of the BBC’s Luther—was set in an office made to look like the home of independent literary press Melville House Books. (The office wasn’t MHP’s, but the books on the shelves all were). Less was made of the words in the wonderful books MHP publishes, the beauty of the sentences and ideas and characters and words therein. So it makes good sense, at a moment when small presses possessed of an eye for design and beautiful prose are producing some of the most exciting work out there, for us to look at what’s in those gems.

Got Something Submittable? KR’s New Submissions System Launches September 15th

The Kenyon Review is pleased to announce that starting with the 2012-13 reading period, we will switch to the www.submittable.com submission system for our regular submissions and for all contest entries. We hope this change will improve the submission experience, and allow submitters who use the system for other magazines to manage all their submissions from one account.

Submissions Open for Earthworks Book Contest

The Kenyon Review, in partnership with Salt Publishing, UK, is now accepting submissions for its new Earthworks competition for a first or second collection of poems by an Indigenous writer. The winning volume will be published by Salt in 2013, and the winning poet will give a reading at Kenyon College and receive a $1,000 honorarium.

Amitav Ghosh Reads at Kenyon on September 5th

In conjunction with Kenyon’s English Department and Department of Asian Studies, The Kenyon Review is excited to announce a reading with acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh on September 5th, at 7:00pm in Bolton Theater at Kenyon College. Ghosh will read from his new novel River of Smoke, the second installment in his Ibis trilogy. Ghosh will also give a talk about his work on Thursday, September 6th at 11:10am in the Cheever Room of Finn House.

What Can You Get for 99¢ a Month?

The Kenyon Review on your Kindle (or free Kindle reading app)! That ain’t even a dollar, folks. Think about it: for the price of a song each month (an old song, which never made the charts, but you love it anyway, and radio is corrupt), you can get a subscription to The Kenyon Review. Our latest issue will be delivered automatically to your Kindle. Four issues full of great poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews, and not a cent of it will go to Bieber.

Summer almost gone, but the world so green it seems in love with every moment. Heat rising off the blacktop, crops baking in the fields. Is there time for one last trip to the shore?

The Kenyon Review, New Series, Summer 1986, Vol. VIII, No. 3

August

I wanted to show her the dawn
coming up over Truro, I wanted
the sky pulled down
like crepe after a dance.
She wanted me to be Odysseus
and tell her stories of that war
I went off to. She thought
my beard was strange, that I
had been wounded in some deep place
and she wanted to give me something.

On Libya’s Recent Elections

On Saturday I voted in Libya’s first free elections in nearly fifty years. It was a great feeling multiplied by the exuberant sense of joy expressed by the people on the street in Tripoli. After voting, we drove to Martyrs’ Square, which was crowded with honking cars draped with fluttering flags.

Click here to finish reading this essay.

KROnline is the online complement of The Kenyon Review. New fiction, essays, poetry, and reviews are published on a biweekly basis. Check back often to read some of the most cutting-edge material you’ll find anywhere on the web. Click here to see our latest offering.

from A Field Guide to North American Blurbs

July 21, 2012 — Jake Adam York

As I’m preparing two blurbs this weekend, I’m looking at a lot of blurbs and thinking about the genre. Maybe there are some observations to be made about the varieties of blurb so you’ll recognize them in the wild.

Maybe you’ll comment, sharing some of your favorite blurbs . . .

Contents Aug. 2012
Nicole Krauss
Why We Chose It
Earthworks Contest
Submissions Update
Amitav Ghosh
KR for 99¢
From the Archives
From KROnline
From the Blog

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