James McGirk
Writer specializing in finance, energy, emerging technologies, development, and longform content.
Nobody Wins
PULITZER prizes are better known for honoring American journalism than fiction. Their heft in literary circles is far outweighed by the Nobel prize or MacArthur Fellowship. Yet the Pulitzer remains one of the few literary honours that can substantially increase an author’s sales in America. The Pulitzer prize for fiction last year boosted sales of Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit from the Goon Squad” by an order of magnitude. Publishers had been keen on a similar revenue injection this year, in light of disappointing sales and a looming (and costly) anti-trust decision on digital rights.
The Q & A: Lorin Stein
This month editorial control of the Paris Review, a pre-eminent American literary magazine, changed hands from Philip Gourevitch to Lorin Stein, now a former senior editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux (and an occasional contributor to this magazine). While at FSG, Stein made his name finding and refining such authors as Elif Batuman, Lydia Davis, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Sam Lipsyte, Richard Price and James Wood. He also worked on FSG’s recent translations of fiction by Roberto Bolaño and personally translated from the French “The Mystery Guest” by Gregoire Bouillier… [LINK]
WHITNEY’S TEPID BIENNIAL
Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Couch For a Long Time, 2009
Sleet spattered over VIPs queuing outside for the opening of the Whitney Biennial on February 23rd. We suffered in silence, in darkness, our conversations drowned by the monastic groaning of an outdoor installation that cast an eerie blue hue. Dumpling trucks prowled and rogue cameramen interviewed some on a scrap of red carpet. We inched along as the storm intensified, sentries sifting us into various purgatories….[link]
AN ARTFULLY DISJOINTED VENICE BIENNALE
In its 114 years, the Venice Biennale has grown from a small festival organised by a local city council into one of the most dense and most important agglomerations of contemporary art the world has ever seen. The 53rd Venice Biennale crams 77 national pavilions and 38 collateral shows into the traditional Giardini (gardens) and Arsenale (shipyards). Counter-festivals have sprung up beyond the official boundaries, and there is even an Internet Pavilion…[LINK]
stefano meneghetti