Eat, Drink and Be Chary Eat, Drink and Be Chary
J.M. Coetzee's new novella, The Lives of Animals, must be some kind of first.
Jun 17, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel
Indian Music, Sans Sitar Indian Music, Sans Sitar
I am an artless serf of Cupid. So are you and your mama--but not Vikram Seth.
Jun 17, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Amitava Kumar
Emancipation Proclamation Emancipation Proclamation
Upon his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind some 2,000 pages of a never-finished second novel--more than forty years of fine-tuning what his literary executor, John F.
May 27, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard
Fading Czech Velvet Fading Czech Velvet
As I'm driven to the home of Ivan Klima, one of the Czech Republic's most internationally respected writers, the hand of fate slips in beside me in the taxi.
Apr 29, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Mark Schapiro
Rushdie as Orpheus, on Guitar Rushdie as Orpheus, on Guitar
From the Satanic Versifier, more love and more death, with a song in his heart.
Apr 21, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard
Solzhenitsyn’s History Lesson Solzhenitsyn’s History Lesson
Knowledge of Khrushchev's reaction cited above is personal; he was the author's grandfather.
Apr 15, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Nina Khrushcheva
Comic Relief, NEA-Style Comic Relief, NEA-Style
The world is a bleak canvas, all black and white, with only some grays "so that the black and the white [don't] bump into each other so hard." The gods are quarrelsome and bored...
Apr 1, 1999 / Books & the Arts / JoAnn Wypijewski
Buddha Leaves Suburbia Buddha Leaves Suburbia
If you adored Catherine Texier's Breakup last year, fell to the floor gushing sympathetic tears for the abandoned raconteur and raised your fists with indignant empathy over the...
Apr 1, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Minna Proctor
Spice Grrrl Spice Grrrl
On a trip to Russia in 1995 I was told by the young writers I met there that when a certain famed Soviet novelist returned to his native land, he was an offensive anachronism to th...
Feb 25, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Eileen Myles
What Boddah You?: The Authenticity Debate What Boddah You?: The Authenticity Debate
If there's one thing everyone agrees on about Hawaii writer Lois-Ann Yamanaka, it's that she has a perfect ear for local pidgin dialects, which change cadence and idiom througho...
Feb 11, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Mindy Pennybacker