Literature

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . In 1742, the Italian engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi fell ill. Malaria, a seasonal epidemic that killed thousands of Italians every year until

The Secret Lives of Yoga Instructors Jenny Bhatt Jenny Bhatt is a writer, literary translator, and literary critic. Share article Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . “Pros and

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Three decades ago, Walter Mosley published Devil in a Blue Dress, his first novel, a mystery featuring the now-famous private investigator Easy

Cynthia Weill is director of the Center for Children’s Literature at the Bank Street College of Education. She is trained as an art historian and has worked as an educator and in humanitarian assistance. She holds a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed her dissertation work in Oaxaca, Mexico, where she worked closely

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . The Rona Jaffe Foundation has been recognizing outstanding emerging women writers since 1995—past recipients include Elif Batuman, Chelsea Bieker, Eula Biss, Rivka

Everything Is Filthy and I Am All Chores Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . A Clean Story I was taking a bath in the old clawfoot tub and

Harlan Margaret Van Cao and Lan Cao / Courtesy of Penguin Random House Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter (Viking, 2020) is a memoir written in alternating narrative chapters between Lan Cao and Harlan Margaret Van Cao. Coming to the United States from Vietnam in 1975 as a thirteen-year-old refugee, Lan

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . The pleasures of sex, like life, are temporary. Love is perhaps more complicated, but if we are being honest with ourselves, I

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Sigrid Nunez’s latest novel, What Are You Going Through?, explores the rich interior life of a narrator whose name we never learn.

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Cottagecore—the escapist aesthetic that romanticizes a simple, pastoral lifestyle—has been the internet trend of 2020. As Rebecca Jennings notes in Vox, cottagecore

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel Homegoing told the story of two branches of a Ghanaian family, one descended from a woman who marries

“Girl and a Margin” Image: Ladan Osman. Collage: Joe Penney. Series editor’s note: In Ladan Osman’s piece “Dark Matter Girls,” the poet quietly asks herself, and by extension us, how we see Black girls, dark-skinned girls, girls that do not fit into the expectations of others. She says, I am chaos, incomprehensible; what kind of

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . In Raven Leilani’s Luster, Edie is a 23-year old Black woman who, amongst other problems, has irritable bowel syndrome. “I can’t shit,”

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . When I wrote my first novel, The House With a Thousand Stories, I drew inspiration not only from great 20th-century novels like

World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, announced today that the 2020 Neustadt Lit Festival will be held entirely online from Oct. 19-21. The festival will feature numerous panels exploring 2020 Neustadt laureate Ismail Kadare’s multi-decade legacy. Robert Con Davis-Undiano, World Literature Today’s executive director, said that the

Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . The first day of school hits a little different this year, with hundreds of students logging in through Zoom, teachers protected with

MFA vs. GDP Paul Dalla Rosa Share article Electric Lit relies on contributions from our readers to help make literature more exciting, relevant, and inclusive. Please support our work by becoming a member today, or making a one-time donation here. . “An MFA Story” by Paul Dalla Rosa The summer before the summer I was