Happiest of Fridays, all you Asymptote-rs!
We love just how global we are here at Asymptote—world travel at armchair cost! But it’s likely even our non-American readers will get a giggle at the ubiquity of U.S. slang in this helpful infographic: the United Slang of America. (I’m currently in Kybo country, though I haven’t the slightest idea what that is). Speaking of armchair travel, reading a book with an invented geography poses a particular conundrum for real-life cartographers stuck on facts: here, they show us how it’s done.
Lots of loose, popular ends wrapping up this week: we love Minneapolis-based Graywolf Press, which seems to have taken the independent literary world by complete and utter storm, in nine short years. And I’ve gushed a lot about Italian novelist Elena Ferrante in the past—here’s her exclusive interview with Elissa Schappell in light of the U.S. release of The Story of the Lost Child, interview available thanks to Vanity Fair (it’s rumored she’ll only be giving one interview per country, so this might be all you get). Just be sure to take your vitamins and get adequate sleep, lest you catch this season’s Ferrante fever.
Even beyond the grave, writers rancor: German writer Günter Grass’s last publication—released posthumously—appeals to the German populace to welcome refugee immigrants, criticizing their reticence from beyond the grave. And in an earlier Germany, the Weimar Republic’s impressive tradition of book jacket design lives on, inviting us to judge us by their covers.
American actress Scarlett Johansson litigated nigh-but-not-quite effectively against the French publication of a novel, Grégoire Delacourt’s The First Thing You See. She tried to get it banned, failed, and the buzz likely prompted its translation into English—available in the United Kingdom on September 10.
Prizes don’t generally “spark outrage,” especially if they’re “peace prizes.” But the biannual Erich-Maria Remarque Friedenspreis, which went to Syrian poet Adonis, appears to encourage some ire among Germans who don’t find his politics vocal enough. Meanwhile, the French longlist for its super-famous Prix Goncourt has been announced—what do you think?