Tag Archives: Beloved

Nonsecular: William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison

April 19, 2014 Toni Morrison says in a Paris Review interview: “I always get up and make a cup of coffee while it is still dark—it must be dark—and then I drink the coffee and watch the light come.”   … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Americas, Comparative literature, Magical realism, Twentieth century literature | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Jane Austen’s Philadelphia, Toni Morrison’s Denver

January 30, 2013 2013  is the bicentennial of Pride and Prejudice, so I’ve been learning new things about Jane Austen — for instance, the fact that her aunt was named Philadelphia, Phila for short.  Phila never saw Philadelphia; no, at … Continue reading

Posted in African-American literature, Cities, Classics, collaboration, Contemporary novel, Ethnicity, Race, slavery, Twentieth century literature, Vernacular dialects | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

All Saints Bookstore, Beijing

June 13, 2012 We were in Hong Kong on June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.  A candlelight vigil had been held in Victoria Park for the past 23 years.  This year, 180,000 people showed up. There … Continue reading

Posted in Asia, Boostores, China, Cities, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Diaspora, Dissidents, Educational institutions, literary magazaines, macro politics, Media, Nobel Prize, print medium, public universities, Publishers, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments