Paper Trail

Fourteen suspects on trial for the Charlie Hebdo attacks; Zadie Smith on demonstrating with Extinction Rebellion


Zadie Smith. Photo: Dominique Nabokov

The American Literary Translators Association has announced the longlists for this year’s National Translation Awards in poetry and prose. Nominees include Jordan Stump’s translation of Marie NDiaye’s The Cheffe and Frank Wynne’s translation of Emiliano Monge’s Among the Lost.

The Noname Book Club has selected Disability Visibility and Capitalism and Disability as their books of the month.

Several influential writers, including Zadie Smith, George Monbiot, and Margaret Atwood, are demonstrating with Extinction Rebellion as part of its campaign against right-wing think tanks hindering climate action. Said Smith: “The heroes of this historical moment are climate activists: they are trying to save us all – primarily from ourselves. Anything the rest of us can do to acknowledge, support or further their work, we should try to do.”

Fourteen suspects are on trial in France for the 2015 attacks on the office of Charlie Hebdo.

Hari Kunzru, author of the new novel, Red Pill, takes the Lit Hub questionnaire.

The New York Times has an article on the Trump book boom, which suggests that “publishers are producing books for every partisan and wondering if the gravy train ends on Election Day.” According to the Times, more than 1,200 books have come out about Trump, more than twice as many than the number of books that came out about Obama during his first term. The trend will continue over the next couple months: former Trump fixer Michael Cohen has a memoir, Disloyal, coming out next week, joining Bob Woodward’s Rage and Rick Gates’s Wicked Game as some of the high-profile Trump books coming out before November.