Death of Maya Angelou
The biggest story of the literary world this past week has been the death of Maya Angelou at age 86.
The coverage has been extensive, but here are a few stories I’ve chosen as providing a good overview of her influence and significance:
Maya Angelou: The essential reading list
From USA Today
13 of Maya Angelou’s best quotes
Also from USA Today. Scroll down below the timeline of her life and achievements.
A Farewell to Maya Angelou
Video from The New York Times. (Apologies for the unavoidable opening advertisement.)
Goodbye, Steinbeck; All Hail, Shelley
In the other big literary story of the past week, British minister of education Michael Gove has suggested the elimination of several works by U.S. authors from the reading list for British students.
10 authors who are brilliant at Twitter
Hannah Jane Parkinson thinks you should follow these writers on Twitter.
When literature goes to war: How Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer and “Catch–22″ changed the novel forever
An excerpt from The Novel: A Biography by Michael Schmidt:
How the great American novels of the 20th century captured the horror, humor and devastating cost of modern warfare
Have Literary Prizes Lost Their Meaning? (Have They Ever Had Any?)
Cultural prizes notoriously reward the wrong works for the wrong reasons: On the long list of worthies deprived of the Nobel for literature are Tolstoy, Proust, and Joyce.
