Anne Carson Events

Anne Carson's new book, Antigonick, a reinterpretation of Sophokles's Antigone with lush illustrations by Bianca Stone, is out this month. She will be reading at select locations across the country in the next few weeks, as well as participating in a performance of Nox as a dance piece with former members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. 

May 10-12, 8:00pm — Danspace
A live performance of Nox.
131 E 10th St. New York, NY. 
To purchase tickets ($18), click here.

May 13, 7:00pm — Nicola's Books

Reading and conversation.
2513 Jackson Ave. Ann Arbor, MI.
More information here.

Kenneth Rexroth Celebration Events

In the Sierra: Mountain Writings, published last month, will be celebrated at select bookstores around the country. In the Sierra collects the various mountain writings Rexroth wrote about the Sierra Nevada where he spent a significant amount of time exploring and camping.

May 6, 7:00pm — Book Passage
Join editor Kim Stanley Robinson and illustrator Tom Killion as they discuss In the Sierra: Mountain Writings.
51 Tamal Vista Blvd. Corte Madera, CA.
More information here.

May 15, 7:00pm — City Lights Bookstore
Editor Kim Stanley Robinson will be joined by illustrator Tom Killon and writer Carter Sholz to celebrate the publication of In the Sierra: Mountain Writings.
261 Columbus Ave. San Francisco, CA.
More information here.

Patience after Sebald Opening at Film Forum

W.G. Sebald (1944-2001), one of the 20th century’s greatest literary figures, wrote evocatively of memory and exile, destruction and decay; his legion of fierce admirers compare him to Virginia Woolf, Proust, and Rousseau. A.O. Scott writes in The New York Times:

Patience (After Sebald) is, to some degree, a survey of the work of the German writer W.G. Sebald, who spent most of his career in England and whose books, blending fiction, memoir, philosophy and travel writing, defy easy classification. The film, assembling critics and colleagues to reflect on Sebald’s 1998 book,The Rings of Saturn, is both an essay in interpretation and an attempt to replicate the writer’s distinctive, elusive sensibility in a visual medium.

Rick Moody will introduce the film on May 9. Lynne Sharon Schwartz, editor of the The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W.G. Sebald, will host a similar event on May 11. The film will be shown through May 15.

May 9, 8:20pm — Film Forum
Patience (After Sebald) introduced by Rick Moody.
209 W. Houston St. New York, NY.

May 11, 8:20pm — Film Forum
Patience (After Sebald) introduced by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.
209 W. Houston St. New York, NY.

More information about the film can be found here, and ticket information can be found here. 

Nathaniel Tarn Readings in Chicago and Ann Arbor

Nathaniel Tarn's poetry has been described by Octavio Paz as having "a rich temperament, a remarkable, linguistic inventiveness, and a vision both original and universal." Join him at any or all of these upcoming events!

May 2, 7:00pm — (New) Corpse Space
Tarn will be joined by fellow poet Joseph Donahue for a reading and discussion.
1511 N. Milwaukee, 2nd Floor, Chicago, IL
More information here. 

May 3, 5:00pm — Northwestern University
Class and reading as part of the "Poetry & Poetics Colloquium" series,
Northwestern University, University Hall 201, Evanston, IL
More information here.

May 4, 7:00pm — Copper Colored Mountain Arts Center
Reading and interview.
METAL — 220 Felch Street, Ann Arbor, MI
More information here.

New Books:
Antigonick

a translation of Sophokles's Antigone
by Anne Carson
illustrations by Bianca Stone

Anne Carson has published translations of the ancient Greek poets Sappho, Simonides, Aiskhylos, and Euripides. Antigonick is the first time she's making translation into a combined visual and textual experience. Sophokles’s luminous and disturbing tragedy is here given an entirely fresh language and presentation, making the fundamentally human issues of death and honor, family and morality as relevant as ever.

The text itself is hand-lettered on the page by Anne Carson, and this one-of-a-kind edition features stunning full-color drawings by Bianca Stone printed on translucent vellum pages that overlay the text. Learn more here.

"Antigone [is] one of the most sublime and in every respect most excellent works of art of all time."  
—Hegel, Aesthetics

The Walk

by Robert Walser
translated by Christopher Middleton with Susan Bernofsky
part of the New Directions Pearl series

A pseudo-biographical "stroll" through town and countryside rife with philosophic musings, The Walk has been hailed as the masterpiece of Walser's short prose. Walking features heavily in his writing, but nowhere else is it as elegantly considered. Without walking, "I would be dead," Walser explains, "and my profession, which I love passionately, would be destroyed. Because it is on walks that the lore of nature and the lore of the country are revealed, charming and graceful, to the sense and eyes of the observant walker." The Walk was the first piece of Walser's work to appear in English, and the only one translated before his death. However, Walser heavily revised his most famous novella, altering nearly every sentence, rendering the baroque tone of his tale into something more spare. An introduction by translator Susan Bernofsky explains the history of The Walk, and the difference between its two versions. Learn more here.

"The Walk remains the best starting point for experiencing Walser's genius."  
—The Quarterly Conversation

Antwerp

by Roberto Bolaño
translated by Natasha Wimmer
part of the New Directions Pearl series

As Bolaño's friend and literary executor, Ignacio Echevarria, once suggested, Antwerp can be viewed as the Big Bang of Roberto Bolaño's fictional universe. Reading this novel, the reader is present at the birth of Bolaño's enterprise in prose: all the elements are here, highly compressed, at the moment when his talent explodes. From this springboard – which Bolaño chose to publish in 2002, twenty years after he'd written it ("and even that I can't be certain of") – as if testing out a high dive, he would plunge into the unexplored depths of the modern novel. Antwerp's fractured narration in 54 sections – voices from a dream, from a nightmare, from passers by, from an omniscient narrator, from "Roberto Bolaño" — all speak in multiple directions and cuts to the bone. Learn more here.

"Antwerp is a total avant-garde freakout, and among the most beautiful things Bolaño wrote."
—The Millions

The New Directions Blog

If you haven't been to our blog lately, head over to have a look at some collage art inspired by both Roberto Bolaño and Tennessee Williams; a rare (and, well, unique) cover from our library; poetry excerpts from Xi Chuan and Kenneth Rexroth; and a sneak peek at Anne Carson's new book. 

We're also on Twitter (@NewDirections) and Tumblr (here), and would love to see you there.