Fiction

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

Narnia Born Again Narnia Born Again

For 300 years, Christopher Wren's Sheldonian Theater has been the center of ceremonial life at Oxford.

Jan 14, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Michael Joseph Gross

Coupling and Uncoupling Coupling and Uncoupling

The most striking thing about Couples is the novelist's attempt to break out of the intimist, unpolitical, miniaturist mold that had become his official bust.

May 13, 1968 / Books & the Arts / Jose Yglesias

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