literary

Two thrillers with literary antecedents — “Cross” on Prime Video and “The Day of the Jackal” on Peacock — premiere Thursday.

After reading the letters, Anolik ditched her plans to revise “Hollywood’s Eve,” pivoting instead to write “Didion & Babitz,” an essential chronicle of a literary friendship.

Babitz’s letters reveal a complex touch-and-go friendship between the two: Didion jump-started Babitz’s literary career by writing a letter of recommendation to Rolling Stone then-editor Grover Lewis, who published Babitz’s story “The Sheik.”

One chapter looks at a literary example, William Wells Brown’s novel "Clotel," which is something of a fantasia on the Sally Hemings story.

In 2012, the government of Rajasthan state sought the arrest of four Indian authors - Hari Kunzru, Ruchir Joshi, Amitava Kumar and Jeet Thayil - after they downloaded a few passages from the Satanic Verses and read them out at a literary festival in the city.