I risked it all against the sea to have a better life
Internet websites and print journals are always trotting out essays by writers and editors and agents and readers about how nobody reads any longer—the reason being, these essays declare, that publishing houses simply want to crank out the cheapest book they can get by with, preferably in e-book format. This is certainly true. Major publishing houses are, without a doubt, money-grubbing book factories so intent on repeating the same paperback thrillers penned by ghostwriters that they increasingly treat serious literary writers without respect, not only financially, but also personally and artistically. All of this is true. But implicit in this argument, is that the writer is doing nothing wrong—and, is in fact generating engaging, progressive, striking works of art, which are in turn, rejected and incinerated by the publishing houses. And this, unfortunately, is certainly false. American realist writers—the vast majority of them—are also to blame for the no-one-is-reading crisis, because they have essentially ceased corresponding with and affecting American society, and their works have in turn, grown boring.
photo { Mustafah Abdulaziz }
