Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell have won the International Booker Prize for Translated Fiction for Tomb of Sand. It is the first novel originally written in Hindi to win the prize.
At BOMB, Mark Haber discusseses his new novel Saint Sebastian’s Abyss with Ryan Chapman. Haber’s novel follows two art critics and former best friends who meet after a long falling out. The author tells Chapman about his attraction to the idea of “absolute knowledge”: “Having characters fixate on something as small as a tiny canvas painting, making it the guidepost of their entire lives, losing friendships, ruining marriages, just to be able to say, ‘I know this completely. I understand it better than anyone,’ is both fascinating and entertaining.”
For the New York Times, Redeployment author and veteran Phil Klay writes about the increasingly secretive warfare America wages globally, and how this secrecy “hides issues of public concern from public scrutiny.” Given the fact that US airstrikes have repeatedly killed civilians abroad, Klay emphasizes that “the current level of secrecy practiced by the U.S. military demands a level of trust that is unearned.”
Dissent is launching a program to support emerging writers. Accepted applicants will work closely with a member of the magazine’s editorial board.
Next Sunday, Wendy’s Subway is hosting a virtual and in-person marathon reading of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s 1982 work Dictee at the Whitney Museum, where Cha’s work is currently on view as part of the museum’s Biennial. The four-hour reading will begin at 11:30am; Grace M. Cho, Simon Wu, Kate Zambreno, and more will take turns reading.