The Neustadt Prize and Festival, a memorial for Seamus Heaney, and a best books list from 1898
Welcome back to another edition of Friday Links! Last week, we were busy celebrating the 2013 Neustadt Festival with our amazing jurors and visiting authors. We also announced the next Neustadt laureate, Mozambican author Mia Couto, who will join us next Fall to accept his prize. It was an incredible week, and we encourage you to check out our Neustadt Facebook page, our Flickr account, and the Neustadt Prize blog for what you might have missed.
News, Reviews, and Interviews
Learn more about the 2014 Neustadt laureate in this interview with him soon after his win.
Additionally, the first chapter of Mia Couto’s The Tuner of Silences is available for reading at Warscapes.
In this awesome timeline resource, Poets & Writers reminds us that self-publishing is not a new phenomenon and has, in fact, been occurring since the dawn of time.
Julia Franck, the German-language author who graced the May 2012 cover of WLT, published a new dark fairy tale with Harville Secker this week.
It turns out that Polish readers are very fond of Arabic literature, a relationship that has been cultivated for over 300 years.
A new study shows that, while we’ve always known that there were fundamental differences between poetry and prose, reading the two categories creates very different brain reactions.
Emily Dickinson fans can now access her entire archive online for free.
What is being considered Seamus Heaney’s last known poem was released to the public before it was officially anthologized.
As a supplement to our current issue on Working-class Literature, we encourage you to read this New York Times article on the poetry of NYC cab drivers.
Lynn Coady has been named the winner of the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize!
For Your Calendar
There will be a public memorial for Seamus Heaney in New York City, November 11.
A new film about the relationship between Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soare is debuting in New York on November 8 and in Los Angeles on November 29.
Fun Finds and Inspiration
Halloween might be past, but there’s never a bad time for a good scare. Are these the 50 scariest books of all time?
Daniel Hahn is embarking on a long journey at the Free Word Centre blog—he is live blogging his latest translation of Carola Saavedra’s Flores Azoules (tr. Blue Flowers).
The city of Boston is currently pushing for the first-ever literary cultural district based in America.
If you’re a David Foster Wallace fan, check out this amazing list of his free stories and essays at Open Culture.
Those “100 Best Books of All Time” lists are nothing new. Here’s one from Clement K. Shorter, dating all the way back to 1898.
Ever wondered how a word was pronounced across language networks? This language map gives several examples of word pronunciation variation throughout the EU.
Just because a protagonist isn’t likable doesn’t mean he or she isn’t important. Here’s a list of five unlikable protagonists everyone should meet from Typographical Era.
