The Body Artist: A Conference on Don DeLillo

I’d like to announce an upcoming event:

On April 28-29 I’ll be one of 20 speakers giving a talk at a literary conference on Don DeLillo titled “The Body Artist.”

It takes place at the New School at 66 West 12th St., New York, NY.

Speakers are: Joe Salvatore (organizer), M.C. Armstrong, Matt Bell, Olivia Kate Cerrone, Scott Cheshire, Anne Margaret Daniel, John Domini, Fred Gardaphe, John R. Keene, Carolyn Kellogg, Randy Laist, Tyler Malone, Albert Mobilio, Tracy O’Neill, Ed Park, Vince Passaro, Andrea Scrima, David Winters, Sunil Yapa, and Jacqueline Zubeck.

Schedule and registration:

https://www.delillo-conference-nyc-2017.com

Here’s a little preview:

 

“Are we more similar to animals than we care to admit, caught in vast murmurations and blind herds that obey some ancient code humming in our DNA? Or have we merely gotten used to believing our own stories? We’ve come together here not merely to celebrate the work of one of our most influential, prescient, brooding, analytical minds, but to comb it for clues, for metaphors, for a vocabulary and a language that can somehow explain us to ourselves. What can literary fiction achieve in a culture that has itself surrendered to fiction? That is more comfortable with make-believe than with doing the tedious work of trying to figure out why things are the way they are? Americans are addicted to fun—it’s what makes the US so charismatic, and so good at popular culture, and enviable in so many ways, but it’s at the heart of a breakdown in discourse and a disassociation from reality that has us, literally, making things up as we go along.”

I’d like to announce that a German translation of “A Lesser Day” will be published by Literaturverlag Droschl in Graz and premiere at the Leipzig Book Fair in 2018.

Check out Droschl’s catalogue of German-language authors and works in translation, which range from Gerschon Schoffmann and Julien Gracq to Gwenaelle Aubry and our own beloved Lydia Davis, translated in crystalline prose by Klaus Hoffer:

http://www.droschl.com/en/