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Fiction editor Deborah Treisman talks to George Saunders about his new book, “Tenth of December”: http://nyr.kr/Wprlav
Photograph: Damon Winter/The New York Times/Redux
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"Experience"→
Read new fiction by Tessa Hadley, featured in this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/WZcseQ
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Staff Favorites from the Archive→
We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. To close out the launch of Double Take, we’ve asked some of our colleagues for their reading suggestions from the archive….
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Ancient Fears
We have been telling these stories for as long as we’ve been telling stories; there have always been storms. But there seems to be a special angst and urgency in the way that we receive them today. There are those who believe that the singular story of our time is—or will be—a flood saga.
Avi Steinberg on the return of the flood saga.
The Much Resounding Sea, by Thomas Moran, 1884. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
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“In Afghanistan, everyone has war-related stories to tell,” the photographer Mikhail Galustov told me. “Every family has been hurt by the war in one way or another, and I wanted to find a language of photography that would be different from what I had done before.” In this portrait series, which Galustov began in 2009, he tells the story of war through Afghan faces.Since he moved from his longtime base in Moscow to Kabul three years ago, Galustov’s work has focussed on NATO’s military intervention in Afghanistan, and on what might happen to the country as the international coalition drawns down. He isn’t surprised by recent reports that the U.S. has effectively abandoned what was once the cornerstone of American military strategy in Afghanistan—brokering a peace deal with the Taliban. “Afghans are very pessimistic about 2014,” he said. “The Taliban realize that victory is close, and they don’t need to negotiate. They don’t have to accept compromises. Afghanistan is falling into their hands anyway.”
Which leaves many Afghans desperate to flee before the foreign troops leave. “But most of Afghan society is extremely poor, and they won’t have a chance to leave,” he said. “My subjects are like that. They are ordinary people. They will stay and try to survive and live through the changes. Like they did before, like their parents and grandparents did too.”
Click-through for a slideshow of Mikhail Galustov’s Afghan Faces, and their stories: http://nyr.kr/VlWaAx
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Junot Diaz and Dinaw Mengestu Win MacArthur Grants→
Congratulations to the New Yorker contributors Junot Díaz and Dinaw Mengestu on being awarded MacArthur “genius” grants this week. Díaz has published thirteen stories in the magazine, and Mengestu was included in 20 Under 40, The New Yorker’s 2010 selection of young fiction writers. Here are links to stories we’ve run by these two distinguished writers, along with Q. & A.s they’ve done with their editors about their work.
Junot Díaz:
“How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)”
“The Sun, the Moon, the Stars”
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”
Q. & A. about “The Pura Principle”
“The Cheater’s Guide to Love” Q .& A. about “The Cheater’s Guide to Love”
Dinaw Mengetsu:
Photographs courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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What the tellers do on stage is so simple. So ancient and traditional. And so fucking hard.
Nathan Englander writes a love letter to The Moth literary festival: http://nyr.kr/MK2OrG
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A brief history of Snow White, from the early nineteenth century canonical literary version to Rupert Sanders’s new film, “Snow White and the Huntsman” starring Kristin Stewart and Charlize Theron: http://nyr.kr/JSbXgD
(Source: newyorker.com)
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Cartoon of the day. For more cartoons from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/I0llN0
(Source: newyorker.com)
