The University of Texas at Austin has bought the David Foster Wallace archive. His papers will reside in the University’s Harry Ransom Center, which blogged today about how the acquisition came to be. They had their eye on Wallace, it seems:
Because of the Ransom Center’s strong collections in contemporary literature, our curators and staff keep careful watch on promising, young writers. Over the past 20 years, we have built a list of hundreds of contemporary writers we follow, and we collect first editions of all their books. David Foster Wallace was added to this list early in his career. As we watched his career progress, it became apparent that he was one of the great talents of his generation.
This makes it sound so creepy! Like the archival equivalent of wire services keeping obituaries on file.
