The Art of Reading Like a Translator The Art of Reading Like a Translator
In The Philosophy of Translation, Damion Searls investigates the essential differences—and similarities—between the task of the translator and of the writer.
Jan 30, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Claire Messud’s Remarkable Experiment in Historical Fiction Claire Messud’s Remarkable Experiment in Historical Fiction
Chronicling a pied-noir family across generations and continents, she examines the moral and political responsibilities a novelist owes their kin and their readers.
May 22, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Are Autofiction and Reality TV the Same? Are Autofiction and Reality TV the Same?
A conversation with the literary critic Anna Kornbluh on her new book Immediacy, a searing indictment of a newly prevalent aesthetic of verisimilitude and the first person.
Mar 4, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Why You Can’t Buy Lydia Davis’s New Book on Amazon Why You Can’t Buy Lydia Davis’s New Book on Amazon
Our Strangers is more than a beguiling collection of short fiction: It represents a stand against what might be killing the book industry.
Sep 28, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
The First Great Novel About Virtual Reality? The First Great Novel About Virtual Reality?
Colin Winnette’s disorienting Users examines the limits of morality and imagination as they exist online and in video games.
Aug 16, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
The Reluctant Feminists of the 1960s The Reluctant Feminists of the 1960s
Wendell Stevenson’s campus novel Margot examines the life of a woman who initially resists the political and sexual education her era offers.
May 25, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Are Americans Bad at Reading? Are Americans Bad at Reading?
Novelist Elaine Castillo’s essays reflect on reading as an ethical act and the moral politics of literature in the US.
Nov 10, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Tove Ditlevsen’s Unsentimental Education Tove Ditlevsen’s Unsentimental Education
The Danish novelist and poet was a rare writer—one who shunned sentiment but not empathy in her stories.
Jul 13, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
The Enigma of Roberto Bolaño The Enigma of Roberto Bolaño
David Kurnick’s new book reappraises the Chilean writer, clarifying the preconceptions and myths that haunted his earliest work.
Feb 24, 2022 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
The Moral and Magical Political Fictions of Carolina de Robertis The Moral and Magical Political Fictions of Carolina de Robertis
The Uruguayan American novelist’s The President and the Frog asks us to consider: What does it mean to be a good political actor?
Oct 29, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer