NBCC/Paris Review “Name that Author” Contest #5

by admin | Nov-17-2008

This week Critical Mass continues to publish excerpts from interviews with former National Book Critics Circle award winners and finalists included in the venerable Paris Review “Writers at Work” series; the third volume has just been published by Picador. The reader who first correctly identifies the author will be rewarded with a complete three-volume set of the collected Paris Review interviews. Send your answers to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Please put “Name that Author” in the subject header.

Here is the fifth installment. Which NBCC award winner/finalist had this to say when questioned by the Paris Review interviewer?

“It’s hard for me to imitate someone; I’m very self-conscious about it. That’s an advantage, perhaps—you don’t become too imitative—but it’s also a limitation. I tremble when I feel I’m being like someone else. If it’s Rilke or Rimbaud or Propertius, you know the language is a big bar and that if you imitate you’re doing something else.  I’ve felt greater freedom that way.  I think I’ve tried to write like some of the Elizabethans.”

Send your answer to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  and please put “Name that Author” in the subject heading.

Labels: Author Interviews, Industry News