Ray Bradbury Explains Why Literature is the Security Valve of Civilization (in Which Case We Want Extra Literature!)

Ray Brad­bury had all of it thought out. Behind his cap­ti­vat­ing works of sci­ence fic­tion, there have been sub­tle the­o­ries about what lit­er­a­ture was meant to do. The retro clip above takes you again to the Seventies and it reveals Brad­bury giv­ing a quite intrigu­ing tackle the position of lit­er­a­ture and artwork. For the creator of Fahren­heit 451 and…

Jean-Paul Sartre Rejects the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964: “It Was Monstrous!”

In a 2013 weblog put up, the good Ursu­la Ok. Le Guin quotes a Lon­don Instances Lit­er­ary Sup­ple­ment col­umn by a “J.C.,” who satir­i­cal­ly professional­pos­es the “Jean-Paul Sartre Prize for Prize Refusal.” “Writ­ers throughout Europe and Amer­i­ca are flip­ing down awards within the hope of being nom­i­nat­ed for a Sartre,” writes J.C., “The Sartre Prize…

How literature can illuminate a president’s choice

In Texas, soccer is a collision sport. Politics is a blood sport. The identical is true in Washington. Politics is, partially, theater, and we’ve simply witnessed a terrific tragedy play out earlier than our eyes. The best Democratic president since Lyndon Baines Johnson has been solid apart—and, regardless of at present’s fulsome reward, is prone…