Tag: literature

Columns

Brutalist Fiction

J.W. McCormack

October 25, 2018

After reading Diane Williams, the classic short story seems like a sprawling black hole.

Motherhood!

Lauren Oyler

May 01, 2018

Sheila Heti's Motherhood is indeed a political novel. But it may not be about motherhood.

The Lunatic Face of Fiction

Olivia Parkes

April 10, 2018

On its fortieth anniversary: Joy Williams's “The Changeling” cracked the carapace of literary realism.

No Mothers, No Daughters

Jessa Crispin

March 27, 2018

Taken from the introduction to How to Suppress Women’s Writing, by Joanna Russ, forthcoming from University of Texas Press. I have a vision. The streets of midtown Manhattan are filled with all of the professors, professional critics, editors, and judges of award panels. They ...

The Book of No Despair

J.W. McCormack

March 26, 2018

Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, a Modernist masterpiece with a new translation, makes hapless animals of us all.

Fucking the Patriarch

Jennifer Schaffer

March 21, 2018

In three new novels, women protagonists overturn the "sage older man seduces beautiful ingénue" trope.

Literature Shrugged

Jonathon Sturgeon

March 02, 2018

We can learn a lot about the literary arts by understanding the long history of hatred of literature.

The Thou of Zadie Smith

Lauren Oyler

February 06, 2018

In Feel Free, Zadie Smith's first nonfiction collection, the author courts the paradox of infinite subjects.

The Ovid of Loserdom

J.W. McCormack

January 22, 2018

In his second and perhaps final story collection, the author of Jesus' Son glimpses an out-of-reach infinity.

The Story of a Face

J.W. McCormack

January 03, 2018

We are trying to read the story of a teenage girl, but Marguerite Duras is trying to tell us something else.

Phony War, Phony Peace

Ryan Ruby

November 21, 2017

Julien Gracq's "Balcony in the Forest" (1958) wonders whether we see too many futures at once.

Mind Out of Time

Siddhartha Deb

August 15, 2017

The work of Urdu writer Naiyer Masud depicts a world of fading aristocrats and the drifting poor.