Paper Trail

National Book Awards announced; Remembering Sylvère Lotringer


Sylvère Lotringer. Photo: Iris Klein.

The National Book Awards have been announced: Jason Mott has won in Fiction for Hell of a Book; Tiya Miles in Nonfiction for All That She Carried; and Martín Espada in Poetry for Floaters.

The Paris Review’s editor Emily Stokes has announced that the magazine is getting a redesign, inspired by the Review’s book-size editions of the past. The new look will debut with the Winter 2021 issue, out in December.

In the Chicago Tribune, John Warner offers an appreciation of Fiona McCrae, the Graywolf Press publisher who is retiring next year. Warner observes, “Giving writers the freedom to do their best work also happens to result in a sustainable business. Go figure.”

At the Los Angeles Times, David Ulin remembers the late Sylvère Lotringer, a professor, writer, and publisher of Seimotext(e). Writing about one of the press’s most famous series, which were packaged in trim black paperbacks, Ulin captures the thrill of discovering radical ideas that combined punk and the academy: “Those small and slender Foreign Agents titles struck me with the force of secret messages, inscribed in a language I was desperate to understand.”

New York’s Gagosian gallery has announced a new book imprint, a collaboration with writer Emma Cline. The series will pair visual art with written work, including new novels by Ottessa Moshfegh and Percival Everett.

Tonight at 7pm Eastern, join novelist Elias Rodriques and historian Robin D. G. Kelley for the second installment of Bookforum’s “No Wrong Answers” conversation series.