Pasha Malla

Pasha Malla is the author of The Withdrawal Method (stories) and All Our Grandfathers Are Ghosts (poems, sort of).


what are you reading now

The Culture of Cities by Lewis Mumford, The Brothers Karamazov (slowly) and True to Life, Lawrence Weschler’s book about David Hockney. I just finished César Aira’s Ghosts, which I liked a lot. Next up is Mary Robison's One D.O.A., One on the Way and A Heart So White by Javier Marías.


last book to make you laugh out loud

FreeDarko's The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac. What a hilarious, smart, bizarre and beautiful book!


classic you’ve been meaning to read

Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.


book you borrowed and never returned

When I was a kid I took a book called Goalkeepers Are Different out of the library and never returned it. I hid it guiltily in my sock drawer and snuck secret late-night peeks. I was a soccer goalie and it felt like something important to own, I guess.


most challenging book you’ve ever read

I tried to read some Merleau-Ponty once. That was a failed enterprise, holy shit.


last reading you attended

A joint McSweeney's-Rumpus event in New York. Was really impressed by Jessica Anthony, who read from her new novel, The Convalescent.


weirdest dream involving a book or literary character

Not sure if this counts, but earlier this week I had a dream that Method Man was terrorizing my mom on a weekly basis. He'd drive up to her house with a weird Warholian entourage (which included a wispy Neko-Twiggy hybrid who stood disinterestedly on the lawn smoking cigarettes), Meth would demand that she hand over her microwave or blender and then drive away with it. Obviously, when I found out about this I was incensed -- but Method Man was unrepentant, even when I told him what a Wu-Tang fan I used to be. He kept saying, "Nah B, nah B, you best step off." What an asshole.


most treasured book in your collection

A first edition hardcover of Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World -- one of my all-time favourites, for sure.


book you’ve planted on a coffee table to impress someone

Auto-Urine Therapy by "An Experienced Physician." It's a guide to the health and spiritual benefits of drinking your own pee. So maybe not "impress," exactly...


if you could subscribe to only one literary journal

Hobart. Aaron Burch is a friend and a great guy, but this is also one of the very few journals that I read cover to cover, every issue. Or maybe Ninth Letter, just because it looks so pretty.


best thing you’ve read online recently

This WikiAnswer:

Q: What does "return in spades" mean?

A: 'return in spades' usually means revenge. someone will return or pay back in spades to someone for something they did to them. let's say you sucker punch me in the face. i pay you back in spades by blasting you back in the face with a baseball bat.


most anticipated upcoming release

Dalkey Archive is putting out an anthology of European writers and in it will be a translation of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's meditation on Zinedine Zidane. Hear it's pretty awesome.


recommended reading list:


Books by Canadians Who Are Alive


- Cape Breton is the Thought Control Centre of Canada by Ray Smith

- The Man Game by Lee Henderson

- Alligator Pie and Garbage Delight by Dennis Lee

- Airstream Land Yacht by Ken Babstock

- Blue Gold by Maude Barlow

- Selected Blackouts by John Goldbach

- Angel Square by Brian Doyle

- All the Anxious Girls on Earth by Zsuzsi Gartner

- Lenny Bruce is Dead by Jonathan Goldstein (not sure if he's actually
Canadian...)

- Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy

- Seventeen Tomatoes by Jaspreet Singh

- Augustine in Carthage by Alex Porco

- Sitcom by David McGimpsey