Why books matter. In the library of americas literary anthology. He is the book critic and former book editor of the los angeles times. Ladies and gentlemen, david yulen listen. [applause] thank you. Its a real honor and a pleasure to be here tonight and a real honor to be part of the National Book awards. Let me start by saying what an exceptional year its been for fiction, which means our work which made our work as a jury in this category especially rewarding and especially difficult. Long books, short books, short stories, novels, this list of finalists could have been a hundred books long. Why . Because what fiction offers is the interior plunge, a sense to experience the inner be life of another person which which makes it a mechanism of empathy. Thats what fiction has always been, thats what fiction remains, and it offers a vivid challenge to questions about the health of fiction. Trust me, my fellow jurors and i can assure you, it is healthy. We know this firsthand. In the cour
He was definitely an engaging teacher and as you mentioned his experiments influence a lot of people including including you. [inaudible] this is a bit of a followon and im still trying to formulate what is probably a very elementary question but you talk about all the research you did and obviously he mixes in real historical characters with his primary fictional characte characters. Was he primarily using fiction to illuminate history and historical forces or using history to illuminate human nature . Yes and yes. [laughter] i mean thats a huge question. One of the criticisms that this book has received is that tolstoy intentionally distort historical facts for his own purposes so for instance he creates in the character could to save us a far more salt of the earth kind of character than he actually was. He was apparently much more widely, much more questionable in terms of his morals so historians have accused the full story of using history and distorting it for his own ends. I do
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The Wild Seeds Writers Retreat, hosted by the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, provides a writing community for new and established writers of color to focus on the craft of writing and so much more.