« These are terrifying times for writers and publishers alike. Some contracts demand that authors give up their electronic rights for all time and throughout the universe, so uncertain are publishers of where the future is going and who will control it.
[…] But I believe reports of death of books have been highly exaggerated. When asked whether literature as we know it is an anachronism, Isaac Bashevis Singer, in a Paris Review interview, replied, « I don’t think that literature, good literature, has anything to fear from technology. The very opposite. The more technology, the more people will be interested in what the human mind can produce without the help of electronics. » Bernard Malamud expressed the same sentiment, though slightly more tersely, when asked if the narrative is dead. His answer bears reprinting. « It’ll be dead, » he said, « when the penis is. »
From The Forest for the Trees, an Editor’s Advice to Writers, by Betsy Lerner.
