Critical Notes

Granta’s best young authors, Elizabeth Strout’s new novel, & a conversation with Ishion Hutchinson

By Laurie Hertzel

Ishion Hutchinson. Photo by John Midgley.

 

Balakian award winner Michelle Dean writes in the Guardian on Granta's best young American authors, including NBCC John Leonard award winners Yaa Gyasi and Anthony Marra, NBCC fiction finalists Lauren Goff and Ottessa Moshfegh, and Leonard award finalist Emma Cline.

Leah Mirakhor interviewed National Book Critic Circle Award Winner for Poetry Ishion Hutchinson in the LA Times.Hutchinson talks about the influences of Reggae artists such as Lee Scratch Perry and Vaughn Akae Beka Benjamin. She also reviewed Hari Kunzru’s White Tears, a novel about race, ghost, and the blues for The LA Review of Books. (Photo of Hutchinson above by John Midgley, taken at the NBCC awards ceremony.)

Kim Fay reviewed “Hola and Goodbye”  by Donna Miscolta for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Philip Belcher reviews Jane Satterfield's “Apocalypse Mix” for Shenandoah. 

Michael Magras reviewed “Anything Is Possible,”  by Elizabeth Strout, for the Houston Chronicle.

Sara Elaine F Tankard  reviews “Guesswork,” Martha Cooley's new memoir, for Women's Memoirs.

Rayyan Al-Shawaf reviews “All the Rivers,” a novel by Dorit Rabinyan, in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Jake Marmer reviews Larry Eigner and his “Selected Poems” and also writes about Israeli poets Lea Goldberg and Rahel, all for Tablet Magazine.

Other notable news:

NBCC VP/Awards & Membership Yahdon Israel will be on a NYCxDESIGN panel, Redesigning Citizenship, coming up May 23 at Pratt's Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator. 

 

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Laurie Hertzel is the senior editor for books at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and a board member of the NBCC.