“To have lived one’s life at the same time, and in the same natal country, as Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a guidance and a privilege we South Africans shared.” Nadine Gordimer pays tribute.

In depressing news: the thirty-five-year-old National Poetry Series is in danger of closing, due to monetary issues.

Word is details of Morrissey’s relationship with Jake Owen Walters have been bowdlerized from the U.S. edition of his autobiography.

Pixies frontman Black Francis is writing a graphic novel. (Cue failure to come up with non-lame pun relating to any Pixies lyric.)