Lit Hub Weekly: June 8 – 12, 2020

TODAY: In 1888, Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa is born.

Dispatches from protests across the country: Su Hwang on why the rebellion had to begin in Minneapolis • From Oakland, Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili explores the activism of black motherhood • Pitchaya Sudbanthad on the shift from pandemic to protest, and finding justice in the streets of Brooklyn. | Lit Hub Politics
How JK Rowling betrayed the world she created: Gabrielle Bellot on growing up with the Harry Potter universe. | Lit Hub
In order to create the Ultimate Summer 2020 Reading List, we’ve ventured into unfamiliar territory and employed… math. | Lit Hub
Tayari Jones on Stacey Abrams’ striking political manifesto, Susan Choi on Megha Majumdar’s fierce and assured debut novel, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
Michael Gonzales on the 1965 novel about racial injustice and police brutality in the South that was hailed by critics and would haunt its author until the bitter end. | CrimeReads
Books about racism have skyrocketed in sales recently. | Wall Street Journal
Maxine Hong Kingston, who changed American literature with The Woman Warrior, on storytelling, Chinese-American life, and posthumously publishing her last book. | The New Yorker
“My country has made an unreliable witness out of me—too black, too biased, too “close” to the story; the obituary they keep trying to write for us—but I still wanted to tell you what I’ve seen.” Saeed Jones on grief and protest in America. | GQ
“What is required is a reevaluation, a dismantling. And no nation will go down quietly.” Robert Jones, Jr. on the necessity of collapse. | The Paris Review
Thousands of rare Islamic texts, some of which are hundreds of years old, are being digitized and made publicly available. | The Guardian
“I have no faith that meaningful, measurable, permanent change is on the horizon. Prove me wrong.” Mariah Stovall writes an open letter to white people in publishing. | Poets & Writers
“His pitch was pure. There was no meanness in him. He understood, and conveyed, the grain of America.” Donna Tartt on Charles Portis. | The New York Times
Ilhan Omar has written a rare, actually-good political memoir. | Jacobin
Elena Ferrante’s next novel isn’t due in English for a few more months, but French readers recently got a hold of it. Many were impressed. | Yahoo
Molly Crabapple on recent protests in New York City and why calling to defund the police is “hardly extreme.” | New York Review of Books
Some kids will be getting their summer reading lists via drone delivery this year. | The Washington Post
Merriam-Webster is updating its definition of the word racism after a 22-year-old Missouri woman pointed out that the current definition “is not representative of what is actually happening in the world.” | CNN
Last week, Dawn Frederick, the owner of a Minneapolis-based literary agency, was criticized by two of her agents and an author for her tweets about protestors. A cease-and-desist letter has escalated the conflict. | Publishers Weekly
“Even more than a novel about sex, Luster is a novel about what it means to be a black-female flaneur.” Kaitlyn Greenidge on publishing’s current “renaissance of novels about blackness” and Raven Leilani’s interpretation of a traditionally white, male figure. | VQR
How African crime and detective fiction writers are reshaping the genre. | The Conversation

Also on Lit Hub:

A brief history of feminist bike-riding • Nina Lakhani on the late Berta Cáceres, Indigenous land activist • Emeka Joseph Nwankwo explores how women are changing the face of African publishing • Marina Endicott on the forced schooling of Indigenous Canadians, and other racist acts of “white benevolence” • Lessons for 2020 from the films of Studio Ghibli • Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II on the Poor People’s Campaign, and the politics of rejecting those living in poverty • The radical afterlives of William Wordsworth • Ten short story collections you may have missed last month • Stan Cox how we can build a more humane way of putting food on the table • Matt Ortile on Calvin Klein, race, and stereotypes of masculinity • In celebration of bookstores reopening, Monika Zgustova reflects on reading and resistance • On Larry Kramer’s anger, activism, and great expectations • Liam Pieper rereads Nevil Shute’s resolutely nihilist On the Beach, a true end-times classic • Sharon Harrigan recommends eight books told from the collective perspective • Stephanie Danler and Francesca Pellas in conversation • Rachel Moss on illustrating the song lyrics of Peter Tosh, and the role of children’s books in helping parents talk about race

Best of Book Marks:

Fever Dream, THICK, The Boxcar Children, and more rapid-fire book recs from Catherine House author Elisabeth Thomas • John Freeman recommends five poets who center nature in their work, from Alice Oswald to Juana de Ibarbourou • The Catcher in the Rye, Wuthering Heights, Wide Sargasso Sea, and more rapid-fire book recs from Practical Magic author Alice Hoffman • Stacey Abrams’ Our Times is Now, Joyce Carol Oates’ Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars., and Lauren Ho’s Last Tang Standing all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week