This has gotten a lot of press already, but this Future Library is a project with some decent potential.
As they describe the concept:
It's a creative spin on the usual time-capsule idea -- with the possible drawback that, over a century, things can go wrong. Very wrong. (Personally, I think the forest is the weak spot -- though financing, even in (currently) ultra-wealth Norway had got to be a concern.)
Fascinating from an author-perspective, however: how do you write for an audience that will only read your book x years from now ? (I fear the temptation will be not so much towards guessing-the-future but rather retreating to the pseudo-safety of the old-familiar -- Norse or Biblical myth, or stuff like that.)
Atwood is, of course, a nice name to start with; I hope they can continue to get a similar caliber of writer, year in and year out (but preferably not all English-writing and 'Western' ...).
As they describe the concept:
A thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka, a forest just outside Oslo, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until 2114. Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the 100-year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hopes of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.It's Katie Paterson's idea/project, and with Margaret Atwood the first to contribute a volume ... well, that's helped garner lots and lots of media attention; the most thorough overview so far appears to be Alison Flood's Margaret Atwood's new work will remain unseen for a century in The Guardian.
It's a creative spin on the usual time-capsule idea -- with the possible drawback that, over a century, things can go wrong. Very wrong. (Personally, I think the forest is the weak spot -- though financing, even in (currently) ultra-wealth Norway had got to be a concern.)
Fascinating from an author-perspective, however: how do you write for an audience that will only read your book x years from now ? (I fear the temptation will be not so much towards guessing-the-future but rather retreating to the pseudo-safety of the old-familiar -- Norse or Biblical myth, or stuff like that.)
Atwood is, of course, a nice name to start with; I hope they can continue to get a similar caliber of writer, year in and year out (but preferably not all English-writing and 'Western' ...).