Category Archives: Contemporary novel

Adrienne Rich’s ghazals

February 27, 2014 Her earliest ghazals are in Leaflets, at the very end of the volume, which I must have looked at.   But I’m reading them seriously only now — because of Agha Shahid Ali and Call Me Ishmael Tonight, … Continue reading

Posted in Arabic, Black-Jewish alliances, Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Indian Ocean, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Poetry, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stuart Hall and vernacular modernity

February 14, 2014 The passing of Stuart Hall makes me go back to his seminal essay, “Negotiating Caribbean Identities,” where he talks about “vernacular modernity” as the “modernity of the blues, of gospel music, of hybrid black music in its … Continue reading

Posted in African languages, African-American music, Americas, Auditory field, Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Igbo, indigenous communities, Music, Native American language | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ruth Ozeki: Zen and Politics

December 18, 2013 Reading the papers for “American Literature in the World,” I’m struck by how few wrote on My Year of Meats.   Did people think it was too political, with too much of an agenda, out to get … Continue reading

Posted in Animals, Asia, Asian-American literature, Contemporary novel, Environmentalism, Genre, Religion | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Writers getting old: Ashbery, Angelou, Morrison

November 13, 2013 I was standing at the very back, and saw only a wall of people in front.  I’d also missed the introduction.   For most of reading, all I got was the voice, surprisingly strong, vigorous, the voice … Continue reading

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Ilium, Iowa City: Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five

October 23, 2013 For someone interested in the twentieth-century epic, Slaughterhouse Five is a no-brainer.  How else would one call a story set in Ilium, talking about war, about death and the counterfactual? But did I ever stop to think about … Continue reading

Posted in Boostores, Cities, Climate change, Contemporary novel, Environmentalism, epic, public universities, Science fiction, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oscar Hijuelos, The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O’Brien

October 16, 2013 This week saw the passing of Oscar Hijuelos: guitar-playing, cake-loving (I suspect), also lover of bountiful, sometimes over-stuffed prose. His father was the morning-to-lunch shift cook at the Biltmore Hotel, so he definitely knew a thing or … Continue reading

Posted in Caribbean literature, Cities, Contemporary novel, Cuba, Diaspora, Food in literature, Latin America, Latino/a literature, Music | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mama Day: The Tempest in the Global South

October 2, 2014 Her name is Miranda (“Mama”) Day — yes, that Miranda, the one who said, “Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is!” Gloria Naylor is not the first to take on Shakespeare, of course. … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, Americas, Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Gender, Global South, Race, slavery, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Emily Dickinson’s Africa

June 19, 2013 Whitman’s “Ethiopia Saluting the Colors” (written during Sherman’s Savannah Campaign) has offended some readers; it also has the distinction of being set to music — by the African American composer, H.T. Burleigh. Dickinson’s Ethiopia isn’t so well … Continue reading

Posted in Africa, Contemporary novel, Global South, Nineteenth-century literature, Race | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Brazil: Karen Tei Yamashita, Elizabeth Bishop

April 24, 2013 Both write about human efforts that come to nothing.   Bishop’s Manuelzinho begins bravely, planting gardens that ravish the eye: beds of  cabbages edged with red carnations, lettuces with alyssum.   But then “silver umbrella ants arrive,/ or it … Continue reading

Posted in Americas, Asian-American literature, Brazil, Contemporary novel, Environmentalism, Ethnicity, Genre, Global South, indigenous communities, lyric, Magical realism, Poetry, Science fiction, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Linda Hogan, Herman Melville: People of the Whale

April 10, 2013 The Native Americans have always been there, of course.   The very name of the ship brings up their ghostly presence, for “Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts … Continue reading

Posted in Animals, Asia, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, Native-American literature, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, Race, WAr | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments