A Vigorous, Quiet Revolt: Things Fall Apart At Fifty A Vigorous, Quiet Revolt: Things Fall Apart At Fifty
Published fifty years ago, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart mounted a literary rebellion against the everyday amalgamations and condescension that treat Africa as an undiffere...
May 4, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Howard W. French
When the Whip Comes Down: On Mary Gaitskill When the Whip Comes Down: On Mary Gaitskill
With Don't Cry, a disabling self-consciousness has crept into Mary Gaitskill's fiction.
Apr 22, 2009 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
A Tough Flower Girl: On Norman Maclean A Tough Flower Girl: On Norman Maclean
In Norman Maclean's stories, tragedy comes garlanded in a prose style nearly unsurpassed for its bright flashes of remembrance, its whispers out of time.
Mar 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Philip Connors
A Nazi Zelig: Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones A Nazi Zelig: Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones
The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell's fictive memoir of a Nazi SS officer, is intentionally sickening and an unquestionably brilliant success.
Mar 5, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Samuel Moyn
Schlepics: The Fiction of Angel Wagenstein Schlepics: The Fiction of Angel Wagenstein
Angel Wagenstein and the evolution of modern Jewish storytelling.
Jan 28, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Akiva Gottlieb
Back Talk: Jill Lepore and Jane Kamensky Back Talk: Jill Lepore and Jane Kamensky
Jill Lepore and Jane Kamensky talk about how they wrote the occasionally racy historical novel Blindspot.
Jan 15, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Christine Smallwood
Partisans of Oblivion: A Situationist Novel Partisans of Oblivion: A Situationist Novel
Michèle Bernstein's Situationist novel explores a Paris hovering between Old World and New Wave.
Dec 17, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
Alone Among the Ghosts: Roberto Bolano’s ‘2666’ Alone Among the Ghosts: Roberto Bolano’s ‘2666’
Roberto Bolaño's last novel, 2666, is his most profound exploration of art and infamy, craft and crime, the writer and the totalitarian state.
Nov 19, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Marcela Valdes
City of Shards: The Novels of Elias Khoury City of Shards: The Novels of Elias Khoury
Elias Khoury and the literature of witness.
Nov 13, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Siddhartha Deb
Unreal City: Rilke’s Phantasmagoric Fiction Unreal City: Rilke’s Phantasmagoric Fiction
An appraisal of Rainer Maria Rilke's novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
Nov 6, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Lytal