Fiction

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

x