Boy, can that Pulitzer and Booker Prize finalist Tommy Orange keep a secret—for his entire lifetime. The Oakland native, who first gained fame with his 2019 novel “There There” and followed it up with this year’s “Wandering Stars,” is hard at work on a new book, one which will not see the light of day for the next 90 years.
Orange has just become the 11th author to contribute a manuscript to the Future Library, a project launched in 2014 by Scottish artist Katie Paterson and designed to collect 100 years’ worth of secret books from distinguished authors and publish them in 2114 in an anthology printed on paper from trees planted in the Nordmarka, a heavily forested area in northern Oslo, Norway.
In 2014, Paterson and a team of foresters planted 1,000 spruce trees in the Nordmarka after she conceived the idea for her art project while doodling tree rings on a train ride and making a mental connection between them and the chapters of a book.
“Almost as if the trees absorb the writer’s words like air or water, and the tree rings become chapters spaced out over the years to come,” she explained at the time.
Orange was nominated for the project by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the very first contributor. “When I saw the list of the names of the other authors from previous years, I was floored to be in the ranks of such people,” Orange told The Guardian newspaper of London.
The participants are selected annually by a seven-member trust, which changes every decade, so that the works will reflect the contemporary times of the writers throughout the life of the project. Manuscripts are kept under lock and key in a special room in Oslo’s main public library, which is next door to the Oslo Opera House.
Meanwhile, a single lone tree in the Nordmarka bears a sign that says “Framtidsbiblioteket,” Norwegian for Future Library.
The authors who have come after Atwood, in order, are Britain’s David Mitchell (“Cloud Atlas,” “The Bone Clocks”), Icelandic novelist Sjón (“The Blue Fox,” “Red Milk”), Turkish author Elif Shafak (“The Island of Missing Trees,” “There Are Rivers in the Sky”), South Korea’s Han Kang (“The Vegetarian,” “I Do Not Bid Farewell”), Norway’s own Karl Ove Knausgård (the autobiographical novel series “My Struggle”), Vietnamese-American author Ocean Vuong (“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” “Time Is a Mother”), Zimbabwe’s Tsitsi Dangarembga (“Nervous Conditions,” “The Book of Not”), German author Judith Schalansky (“The Giraffe’s Neck,” “An Inventory of Losses”) and Mexico’s Valeria Luiselli (“Faces in the Crowd,” “Lost Children Archive”).
Get ready for the rumble: Hilarious Irish author Roddy Doyle (“The Commitments,” “Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha”) chewing the fat with his buddy Dave Eggers about his new novel “The Women Behind the Door”; Rachel Kushner talking with John Freeman about her super-hot new novel “Creation Lake” (just short-listed for the Booker Prize); and the ambitious theater troupe Word for Word bringing celebrated writer Lauren Groff’s short story “Annunciation” to a live stage: These are among the wealth of riches that the 25th anniversary edition of the Litquake festival offers from Oct. 10- 26 at various locations around the Bay, beginning with the opening night Booksellers Ball from 7 to 10 p.m. at Club Fugazi, 678 Green St., San Francisco and winding up, as always, with the booze-infused Saturday night Lit Crawl through the Mission District. The ball will cost you $75 to get into, $100 if you’re of a mind to sponsor a bookseller (plus fees), but many of the 80-plus events in the main festival are free (with suggested donations solicited), and there are about 60 stops marked for the always jammed Lit Crawl. Among noted authors making appearances are Jonathan Lethem, Michelle Tea, Hernan Diaz, Daniel Levitin, Jane Smiley, Maxine Hong Kingston, Rita Bullwinkel and many more. Find the entire lineup and links to get tickets at litquake.org.
A big move: Arion Press, the high-end publishing company that pairs artists with literature to create beautiful books by hand in limited editions, is moving from its Hayes Street location in San Francisco to new quarters on the ground floor of the Landmark Building B at Fort Mason. A trio of events is scheduled for moving day, Oct. 19. At 12:30 p.m., author Daniel Handler will be on the third floor of the building in the Bayfront Theater to introduce one of Arion’s new publications. “Fables of Aesop,” commissioned to mark Arion’s 50th anniversary and featuring 15 of those oft-told tales illustrated by well-known artists, including Enrique Chagoya’s rendition of “The Lion and the Mouse” with updated morals penned by the witty Mr. Handler. The hour-long program will feature Handler in conversation with many of the artists; tickets are $20 at arionpress.com/events/aesopartisttalk. Afterward, patrons and the public are invited downstairs for a 2 to 5 p.m. free open house that will put the crafts of typecasting, letterpress printing and bookbinding on view. The evening concludes with an inaugural Arion Press Literary Dinner, beginning with a 6:30 p.m. cocktail reception and leading into a sit-down meal and program hosted by Handler spotlighting the artists in attendance. Tickets are $1,500. For more information, visit arionpress.com/events/arionliterarydinner2024.
Second thoughts: If you’re a fan of Ann Patchett’s and of “Bel Canto” in particular, you might be interested to learn that the author is revisiting the work that established her reputation. Recently asked to hand-annotate her most recent novel, “Tom Lake,” for a charity auction, Patchett found the process so fascinating she decided to take her 2001 novel about a botched kidnapping in a Third World country apart as well. “Because I wrote this book, I am free to be as ruthless as I please,” her publisher’s statement reads. “While working on this annotation, I kept forgetting that I wasn’t correcting my mistakes, I was highlighting them. Do I wish to rewrite what needs to be rewritten? Yes and no. The work has to stand as it is, but by pointing out what I did wrong, I hope to provide a template for other writers to avoid mistakes.” Her handwritten commentary, in addition to clucking over her goofs, will outline choices she made with characters, settings, specific words and phrases and even her narrative style. “The Bel Canto Annotated Edition” (Harper, $40, 352 pages) will be published on Nov. 5.
Hooked on Books is a monthly column by Sue Gilmore on current literary buzz and can’t-miss upcoming book events. Look for it here every last Thursday of the month.
The post Hooked on Books: In the forests of Norway, a Future Library grows; Litquake turns 25 appeared first on Local News Matters.