Tools for Extinction

By Emilio Fraia, Anna Zett, Olivia Sudjic, and more

2020

First Published

3.63

Average Rating

120

Number of Pages

3H38M

Audio Length

Eighteen international writers respond to the open-ended period of social distancing, closures, and illness caused by Covid-19. Compiled during the initial lockdown in Europe, this special collection is a meteoric publishing project with contributions from some of the most exciting and innovative authors working today. Meditating on notions of distance and closeness, sameness and alterity, extinguishing and kindling, Tools for Extinction considers how a common pause might give rise to new modes of domesticity and shift experiences of time. What gestures and actions are we willing to perform to make ourselves, and each other, feel at ease – or at work? What tools and objects are useful, or unprecedentedly useless, to us in the process? And as our species’ trademark proclivity for projecting ourselves into the future is disrupted, might we come to see the buildings, animals, plants, and foodstuffs around us in a new light? The anthology takes its name from Steven Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, a 1960s counterculture compendium of product reviews, essays, and articles on the themes of self-sufficiency, ecology, and alternative education. By giving “access to tools”, a new social order and a more sustainable Earth was imagined.

Avg Rating

3.63

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

21%

4 STARS

21%

3 STARS

58%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Authors

Emilio Fraia

Author · 2 books

EMILIO FRAIA nasceu em São Paulo, em 1982. É autor de Sebastopol (Alfaguara, 2018, terceiro lugar no Prêmio da Biblioteca Nacional, finalista do Prêmio Jabuti e semifinalista do Prêmio Oceanos), de Campo em branco (Companhia das Letras, 2013, em parceria com o artista DW Ribatski) e de O verão do Chibo (Alfaguara, 2008, em parceria com Vanessa Barbara, finalista do Prêmio São Paulo de Literatura). Foi um dos autores selecionados para a coletânea Os melhores jovens escritores brasileiros da revista britânica Granta. Teve sua ficção publicada nas revistas The New Yorker, One Grand e nas coletâneas Passageways, da Two Lines Press, e Cuentos en tránsito, da Alfaguara, na Argentina. Foi premiado com uma Civitella Ranieri Writing Fellowship, tradicional programa de residência de escritores no Civitella Ranieri Center, na Itália, e selecionado para o The Shanghai Writing Program, da Associação de Escritores de Xangai. Escreveu para revistas como piauí, serrote, Trip, Vogue e Bravo! e para jornais como Folha de S.Paulo e O Estado de S.Paulo.

Olivia Sudjic was born in 1988 in London. She studied English Literature at Cambridge University where she was awarded the E.G. Harwood English Prize and made a Bateman Scholar. Her debut novel, ‘Sympathy’, will be published in 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (USA/Canada), ONE (UK), Kein & Aber (Germany), Minimum Fax (Italy) and Wydawnictwo Czarna Owca (Poland). She is one of The Observer’s ‘New Faces of Fiction’ for 2017.

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo

Author · 5 books

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, né le 25 novembre 1981 à Toulouse, est un écrivain français. En 2006, il reçoit le Prix du jeune écrivain de langue française pour sa nouvelle Ne rien faire, écrite à partir de son expérience de quelques mois au sein d'une association de lutte contre le VIH en Afrique. Ce texte court, qui se déroule en Afrique le jour de la mort d'un nourrisson, est une fiction autour du silence, du non-dit et de l’apparente inaction. Fin août 2008, son premier roman, Une éducation libertine, paraît dans la collection blanche des éditions Gallimard. Il est favorablement accueilli par la critique1 et reçoit le Prix Laurent-Bonelli Virgin-Lire, fin septembre 2008. Finaliste du Goncourt des Lycéens, il fait également partie de la dernière sélection du prix Goncourt 2008 (aux côtés de Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès : Là où les tigres sont chez eux (Zulma) qui recevra le Prix Médicis 2008, de Michel Le Bris : La Beauté du monde (Grasset) et d'Atiq Rahimi : Syngué Sabour. Pierre de patience (POL) à qui sera attribué le Goncourt.) En mars 2009, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo se voit finalement attribuer le prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, à l'unanimité dès le premier tour de scrutin. Le 25 juin 2009, c'est au tour de l'Académie française de lui décerner le prix François Mauriac. Il est également récompensé par le prix Fénéon des Universités de Paris. Une éducation libertine est publié en poche (Folio) au mois de mars 2010. Il publie en 2010 un deuxième roman, Le Sel, texte contemporain situé dans le port de Sète, qui relate une journée de la vie d'une famille, au terme de laquelle un dîner doit en réunir tous les membres. Au gré de ses souvenirs, chacun se remémore l'histoire familiale et la figure d'un père disparu. Le livre est fortement soutenu par les libraires et paraît en format poche (Folio) en 2012. Les thèmes récurrents de l’œuvre de Jean-Baptiste Del Amo incluent la mort, la quête identitaire, le corps et la sexualité. En 2010-2011, Jean-Baptiste Del Amo est pensionnaire de la Villa Médicis.

Olga Sofia Ravn is a Danish poet and novelist. Initially she published poetry which was acclaimed by the critics, as was her first novel Celestine. She is also a translator and has worked as a literary critic for Politiken and several other Danish publications.

Cresceu em Lisboa, Macau, Utrecht, Helsínquia. Trabalha em teatro, dança e cinema. Quase sempre nos bastidores. Vive entre Paço de Arcos e Antuérpia. Tem 34 anos. Publicou "Operação Cardume Rosa"; "Se Não Bigo Não Digo" (ambos na Fenda); "Odília ou a história das musas confusas do cérebro de Patrícia Portela" (Caminho) e "Escudos Humanos" (Culturgest). Fez o curso de realização Plástica do Espectáculo e esteve no Teatro da Garagem, O Olho e Projecto Teatral. Escreveu diversas peças, como one spoke, one smoked, one died; Operação Cardume Rosa; T5; Banquete ou a Trilogia Flatland. Recebeu os prémios ACARTE/Madalena Azeredo Perdigão; Revelação de teatro pela Associação de Críticos de Teatro Portugueses e Navegadores Portugueses 94 de BD, pelo CNC.

Enrique Vila-Matas is a Spanish author. He has written several award-winning books that mix genres and have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is a founding Knight of the Order of Finnegans, a group which meets in Dublin every year to honour James Joyce. He lives in Barcelona.

Naja Marie Aidt

Author · 6 books

Naja Marie Aidt is a Danish poet and writer. She was born in Greenland, and spent some of her childhood there. She published her first book of poetry in 1991, and in 2008 she was awarded the Nordic Council's Literature Prize.

Jon Fosse

Author · 28 books

Jon Olav Fosse was born in Haugesund, Norway and currently lives in Bergen. He debuted in 1983 with the novel Raudt, svart (Red, black). His first play, Og aldri skal vi skiljast, was performed and published in 1994. Jon Fosse has written novels, short stories, poetry, children's books, essays and plays. His works have been translated into more than forty languages. He is widely considered as one of the world's greatest contemporary playwrights. Fosse was made a chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite of France in 2007.[1] Fosse also has been ranked number 83 on the list of the Top 100 living geniuses by The Daily Telegraph.[2] Since 2011, Fosse has been granted the Grotten, an honorary residence owned by the Norwegian state and located on the premises of the Royal Palace in the city centre of Oslo. The Grotten is given as a permanent residence to a person specifically bestowed this honour by the King of Norway for their contributions to Norwegian arts and culture.

Christina Hesselholdt

Author · 4 books

Vi Khi Nao

Author · 12 books

Vi Khi Nao holds an MFA in fiction from Brown University, where she received the John Hawkes and Feldman Prizes in fiction and the Kim Ann Arstark Memorial Award in poetry. Her work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. She is the author of two novellas, Swans In Half-Mourning (2013) and The Vanishing Point of Desire (2011), and her poetry collection, The Old Philosopher, was the winner of 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Her manuscript, A Brief Alphabet of Torture, won the 2016 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest. In Fall 2016, Coffee House Press will publish her novel Fish in Exile. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.