The Salvadoran diaspora has become successful and acclaimed writers. Many of these writers–Cynthia Guardado, Raquel Gutiérrez, William Archila, Yesika Salgado–call California and Los Ángeles home. These writers “‘[w]ithout hesitation,…are speaking truth to power, without the need to mediate themselves through a white, U.S.-centric gaze.'” Continue reading How the Salvadoran Diaspora Became a Literary Juggernaut
“Deon’s immortal, Lou, is unusual. She’s young, Black, somewhat naive, and utterly brilliant.” Continue reading Caren Gussoff Sumption Reviews The Perishing by Natashia Deón
By PICO IYER
FROM: The L.A. Times
Los Angeles is the city without a heart, we used to hear when I was growing up in England, few of us having come within 5,000 miles of California. Seventy-eight school districts in search of a center, a desert car culture in which every last soul is locked inside her own four doors, a teenage wasteland: The clichés came streaming in on us as we stood in the rain at bus stops in chilly Oxford, on our way to another unheated basement.
Continue reading “How Pico Iyer found L.A.’s Beating Heart at the L.A. Times Festival of Books”
The Los Angeles Times Book Club’s next read is Bonnie Tsui’s “Why We Swim,” a blend of memoir, history and swim adventure from the California Coast to Iceland to the South China Sea.
Continue reading “‘Why We Swim’ by Bonnie Tsui is July’s book club read”
By Myriam Gurba
FROM: Electric Lit
Amado Vazquez, a Mexican botanist, named an orchid after Joan Didion. While that was a chic gesture, I don’t think of her as an orchid. I think of her as an onion. She’s very white, very crisp, and she makes people cry.
Continue reading “It’s Time to Take California Back from Joan Didion”
“Slouching Towards Los Angeles” is a collection about Joan Didion’s claim on California and its writers. 20 of the books 25 contributors are women. Continue reading Review: Writing in Didion’s Honor — And Her Shadow
By Lynell George
FROM: Los Angeles Times
The sequence is as predictable as the season itself: The calendar reads “fall” but the thermometer registers 90-plus. The Santa Ana winds kick up. Wildfires zipper across the landscape. Once again Joan Didion whispers in the Southland’s collective ear.
Continue reading “Joan Didion’s California Captured in Sweeping New Collection”
Los Angeles Literature 