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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Your favorite examples of experimental literature? (Let's set aside debates about what that means for now. Just your favs.) Any genre, form, length, origin — as long as it's available in English translation.

A drawing of writer Georges Perec with a cat on his shoulder.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

One of the coolest books: Raymond Queneau‘s A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Seeing both The Brutalist’s intermission and Nickel Boys’ aspect ratio curtain masking this week made for special movie moments. The films are pretty great, too.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Not normally the kind of book I’d read, probably, but the Alaskan setting & theme appealed. A fine novel on a clash of cultures & identities. The interstitial chapters on wolves add an intriguing element and complement the narrator’s association with nature, but it’s hard to escape the human POV.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

A novel-in-dialogue based on a summer of recorded conversations, Linda Rosenkrantz’s Talk highlighted for me how reading fiction is an inherently voyeuristic act by dialing up that element to the max. Sometimes it’s just fun to listen in on what others are saying. @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Very happy to have written a few words about @drpollyjones.bsky.social's excellent new book on Gulag fiction for @thetls.bsky.social. Really terrific overview and close readings of various texts and trends, older and recent! www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

the-tls.co.uk

Gulag Fiction by Polly Jones | Book review | The TLS

Polly Jones observes, in her fascinating Gulag Fiction: Labour camp literature from Stalin to Putin, that many of the Soviet state’s “grandiose

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

STATS! STATS! STATS! A generally solid year of film. Thanks, @letterboxd.social.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Sorry to say Malina did not work for me. I appreciate what Bachmann is doing, and the way everything from the events (rather than “plot”) to the language to the protagonist seems to disassociate from itself, but ultimately, it was a slog through not particularly intriguing spaces and style.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Looking for fiction, stories, and essays about soccer. Poetry would also do. Not sports journalism or traditional memoirs, but, uh, good writing involving the sport in some way. Any favorites come to mind?

Pelé poses with a group of Muppets as if he’s their coach.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Like his other works, Dmitry Danilov’s There Are Things More Important Than Football (Soccer) begins as an experiment but unfurls into more. Having gotten back to playing football (soccer) a year ago, I feel more in tune, maybe, with the thrills and bruises of the “novel” than I might otherwise.

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Trevor Berrett @mookse.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Want a signed book? How about two! Giveaway alert! Last year Europa Editions published Anne Berest's The Postcard, translated by Tina Korver. Next year they are publishing Gabriële, a novel Berest wrote with her sister Claire about their great-grandmother. I have three signed sets to give away!

Holding two books in front of my shelves: Anne Berest’s The Postcard and Anne Berest and Claire Berest’s Gabriële.

Stack of six books: three copies of Anne Berest’s The Postcard and three copies of Anne Berest and Claire Berest’s Gabriële to give away!

A look at the signed title page: Gabriële, signed by Anne Berest

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James @exhaustdata.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Here is my deranged merch proposal for a little tote bag (10 x 7 x 3) that holds Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (9.25 x 6.5 x 2) and NOTHING ELSE

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Nicole Fleetwood’s Marking Time is a brilliant exploration of the many contradictions of what we call “prison art.” What effects do those labels have on incarcerated people? What motivates interest in the subject?

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Garden April-Oct. 2024. It was a tougher season with drought and other hiccups, but it’s always lovely to see it grow, bloom, and recede.

A garden with several raised beds, early in the season.

A garden with several raised beds, plants and veggies growing.

A garden with several raised beds, in full bloom.

A garden with several raised beds, near the end of the season, plants fading.

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José Vergara @josevergara.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Any labels won’t do it justice, but @annedemarcken.bsky.social’s dirge-like, novella-length prose poem is amazing. Everything about it: the imagery, the tone, the humor. Just brilliant in what it does with the human body and the experience of loss, sculpting out and together vague memories.

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Katherine Bowers 🌻 @katiabowers.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I created a thing! It is definitely missing people - if you are a person who should be on it, pls let me know! go.bsky.app/8HazBeR

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