Philip Roth wins the 2011 Man Booker International Prize. And one of the judges promptly resigns, with this provocative comment (among others): “Emperor’s clothes: in 20 years’ time will anyone read him?” A worthy question.
Dennis Stevenson, former chancellor of the University of Arts London, should also spur controversy in Britain, which just witnessed shockingly strident protests over planned budget cuts: “We, the arts, have done ourselves quite a lot of damage because our lobbying against [cuts] has been over-hysterical and over-extreme.”
Novelist Arthur Phillips reads almost every book like a craftsman searching for trade secrets. But one novel resists his attempts to pull it apart: Nabokov’s Pale Fire.
They really “like” Facebook: An Israeli couple gives their newborn a 21st-century name.
