In the Paris Review Palestinian author Adania Shibli reflects on the practice of book banning. Last year Shibli’s novel Minor Detail had received a major literary award in Germany, the ceremony for which was cancelled after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 and criticism that the novel could be deemed anti-Semitic. “Writers often write fiction in order to leave behind the oppressiveness of the lived world. To force a link between fiction and the real is an act of violence against the imagination,” Sibli writes.

W. Ralph Eubanks has been named interim president of the Authors Guild, the nation’s largest professional organization that advocates on behalf of published writers. An essayist, journalist, professor, and public speaker, Eubanks succeeds Maya Shanbhag Lang, who resigned as president on Friday.

For Esquire, Jonathan Russell Clark considers “Why We Love Time Travel Stories” and reads into Kaliane Bradley’s debut novel, The Ministry of Time, and Ted Chiang’s novella “Story of Your Life,” among other titles, looking for answers.

Publishers Weekly reports on Freedom to Write for Palestine, an event held last night at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City that featured writers who withdrew from PEN America’s World Voices Festival and Literary Awards, both of which were canceled last month.

New Literary Project announced that Ben Fountain, whose most recent novel is Devil Makes Three (Flatiron, 2023), has won the 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. The $50,000 prize is given annually to a midcareer author of fiction. Fountain was chosen from a shortlist that included Jamel Brinkley, Patricia Engel, Idra Novey, and Bennett Sims.

In the Millions Mexican novelist Nicolás Medina Mora offers a critique of Latin American literature as a category: “What I’m trying to say is that, if one thinks about it for a moment, it becomes clear that ‘Latin America’ does not exist as a material reality. Much like the utopia of transnational friendship envisioned by the Mexican architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the region exists only in the imagination—even if this imaginary existence (like those of God, race, and currency) makes it ‘real’ enough to alter the course of history and shape individual lives.” 

The Guardian profiles Argentinian author César Aira, reportedly a favorite to win the next Nobel Prize in Literature. “He has published more than one hundred novels, gives his work away, and his surrealist books have a massive cult following.”

Fast Company considers how efforts to ban books are ultimately backfiring on conservative activists, particularly those who target books that deal with race and racism: “Indeed, over the last five years, there has been a steady increase in books by and about people of color. And people are finding creative ways to make sure these books get out into the world.”

The winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced, including Jayne Anne Phillips’s Night Watch for fiction, Cristina Rivera Garza’s Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice for memoir or autobiography, and Brandon Som’s Tripas for poetry.

Simon & Schuster has acquired the Netherlands’ largest book publisher, Veen Bosch & Keuning, reports Publishers Weekly. “The move marks the first major instance of a promised international expansion of S&S, which CEO Jonathan Karp alluded to last year following the acquisition of S&S by private equity firm KKR.”

University of Washington Magazine reflects on the legacy of Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers fifty years after its first publication: “Aiiieeeee!  became a foundational text in Asian American Literature, and its editors were credited for both rescuing stories out of time and opening readers to a diversity of voices and experiences from the Asian American community.”

“Garden of Time,” the theme of this year’s annual Met Gala—set to take place this evening—apparently derives from the 1962 short story by English author J. G. Ballard, “The Garden of Time.” The BBC considers the “delicious irony” of the ultra-exclusive fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute alluding to a tale in which “the super-rich hide themselves in Arcadian splendour while the ‘great unwashed’ riot.”

The Asian American Literature Festival will return this September without the involvement of the Smithsonian Institution, which last year canceled it with little warning. “And instead of only being in Washington, D.C., the in-person and virtual events will be spread out nationwide,” reports ABC News.

Authors who withdrew from PEN America’s World Voices Festival and Literary Awards in protest of the free speech organization’s response to the war in Gaza will be reading at an event called Freedom to Write for Palestine in New York City on Tuesday. The event will also raise funds for We Are Not Numbers, “a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project in Gaza that provides the world with direct access to Palestinian narratives.”

On JSTOR Daily Matthew Wills explores the origin of the penguin in the logo of Penguin Random House, previously Penguin Books, which launched in 1935.

Copper Canyon Press today announced that Ryo Yamaguchi is its new publisher. Yamaguchi was previously the publicist of Copper Canyon, an independent poetry press based in Port Townsend, Washington. Michael Wiegers will assume the role of the press’s artistic director in addition to his current position as executive editor, which he will continue.

The detention and imprisonment of writers reached a five-year peak last year, with at least 339 writers jailed worldwide, according to PEN America’s 2023 Freedom to Write Index. “War and conflict had a significant impact on writers in 2023, as the crackdown on dissent in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and in Russia resulted in substantial increases in the number of jailed writers, placing both countries in the top 10 for the first time,” according to the report.

Bianca Stone has been named the new poet laureate of Vermont.

The Denver Post reports that this year’s Readers Take Denver, an annual festival for fans of romance literature held earlier this month, is being denounced by attendees as “disorganized and chaotic,” on par with the 2017 Fyre Festival that led to prison time for its organizer, Billy McFarland. Next year’s festival has been canceled as a result.

ABC News reports on how a recent wave of book-banning efforts has specifically targeted the Asian American community.