“To be inside the cathedral of a language is to be inside a particular view of the world.”
Literature
Posted inEditor's Pick
We Need to Translate More Armenian Literature
“We need them to assert our very existence.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
The Function and Language of Ancient Sexual Texts
A fascinating look at so-called obscenity, then and now.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Novelist Charles Portis Was a True Original
Every Portis fan has a different favorite passage from his novels, but they agree on one thing: no one wrote like Portis.
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
The Early Years of Elif Batuman’s Interest in Russian Authors
How a college student’s scholarly investigation into whether Tolstoy was murdered led to her first book, about the people obsessed with Russian literature.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
In Defense of Boris the Russki
Ayşegül Savaş calls into question a kind of racism in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and laments the liberal reluctance to rebuke discrimination outright, regardless of its targets.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
How The Cult of Masculinity Can Poison Creative Writing Programs
There are numerous ways to tell stories. In her turn MFA program, one writer encountered a literary culture that espoused gendered aesthetics and fostered toxic masculinity.
Posted inNonfiction
‘To Be Polite By Ignoring the Obvious’: Jess Row on Unpacking Whiteness in Literature
“I was looking for texts that seem to go the extra mile in hiding something — texts that almost seem to be begging to be interpreted in terms of what’s not being said.”
Posted inNonfiction
Reading Lessons
You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.
Posted inBooks, Culture, Nonfiction, Story
The Daughter as Detective
A bibliophile tries to understand her father through his favorite Swedish mystery books.