Recent History Recent History
Reviewing the year, in stitches.
May 25, 2021 / OppArt / India Tresselt
Did ‘Cancel Culture’ Drive Richard Wright Underground? Did ‘Cancel Culture’ Drive Richard Wright Underground?
On “Memories of My Grandmother” and The Man Who Lived Underground.
May 20, 2021 / Joseph G. Ramsey
Hello, Poetry, You ‘Lamenting Pleasure’ Hello, Poetry, You ‘Lamenting Pleasure’
Reading poetry over the phone, David Ferry and loved ones find an antidote to loneliness.
May 5, 2021 / Elizabeth Emma Ferry and Stephen Ferry
Blake Bailey’s Life as a Man Blake Bailey’s Life as a Man
The disgraced writer’s Philip Roth biography is a document of a misogynist literary world. But I had to read the book to get the whole story.
Apr 28, 2021 / Katha Pollitt
Vivian Gornick in Reverse Vivian Gornick in Reverse
A conversation with the writer about her life and work.
Mar 11, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Hannah Gold
The Worlds of Edward Said The Worlds of Edward Said
An exile who made the world his home, Said infused his literary style with a cosmopolitan ease and his political commitments with a cosmopolitan ethics.
May 5, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Rashid Khalidi
The Tangled History of Illness and Idiocy The Tangled History of Illness and Idiocy
The pandemic is stress-testing two concepts Americans have historically gotten wrong.
Apr 13, 2020 / Jessi Jezewska Stevens
Peter Handke’s Nobel Condones Violence Peter Handke’s Nobel Condones Violence
One of Sweden’s most important authors on how the Swedish Academy abuses its platform—and the intelligentsia lets it happen.
Oct 18, 2019 / Johannes Anyuru
L’État, C’est Moi L’État, C’est Moi
Trump intends to speak at the traditionally nonpartisan Fourth of July celebration on the Mall.—news reports Though past presidents never inserted themselves In this fete, Donald T…
Jun 18, 2019 / Column / Calvin Trillin