Literature

I’ve seen Salar Abdoh only a handful of times. The most noteworthy is in May 2017 when, hearing that I’d be spending vote day in the southernmost areas of Tehran interviewing working class Tehranis about their choice for president, he offered to give me a ride through some of those neighborhoods. Abdoh, whom I had

Take a break from the news We publish your favorite authors—even the ones you haven’t read yet. Get new fiction, essays, and poetry delivered to your inbox. YOUR INBOX IS LIT Enjoy strange, diverting work from The Commuter on Mondays, absorbing fiction from Recommended Reading on Wednesdays, and a roundup of our best work of

If we label a work as bilingual for using at least two languages, then how do we quantify a work as having more than one language? For example, would one call Megan Thee Stallion’s song “Hit My Phone” bilingual with these lyrics: “Party like a vato, shots of the blanco / Guaranteed to knock a

The National Book Awards took place on November 15th at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. A day before the biggest night in books, two sponsors—Book of the Month and Zibby Books—announced they were not attending because of “political speeches,” following rumors that the nominees were planning to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for Annell Lopez’s debut short story collection, I’ll Give You a Reason, which will be published by Feminist Press on April 9th, 2024. Lopez is the winner of the Louise Meriweather First Book Prize.  The Ironbound is a large, multi-ethnic immigrant neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, filled

What defines the strongest fictional characters?  The most intriguing ones are often developed, revealed or transformed based on their wishes and desires; in other words, what they crave. The more intense the craving, the more commanding the character. In fact, character cravings frequently create the conflicts and plots. What would the evil stepmother in Sleeping

My Spite Could Fill a Museum Tell It to the Birds I am sick of not winning the National Poetry Series. I am sick of waiting for the mammogram, the ultrasound, the appointment to discuss the results. Tomorrow is the first day of school in the year of our Lord 10x the number of Covid

[On October 7, 2023, members of the Islamist militant group Hamas, who governs the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,400 people and capturing roughly 240 hostages. In retaliation, the Israeli government, helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declared war on Hamas. Israel’s retaliation campaign has killed an estimated 11,000 Palestinian civilians

The moment I learned that Shilpi Suneja’s debut novel House of Caravans was about Partition, I reached out to see if she would be interested in doing this interview. All four of my grandparents lived through this event in Punjab—the state that was split to create Pakistan days after India gained independence from Britain in

You Can’t Plan Feelings Out of a Foursome Elisa Faison Share article Group Sex by Elisa Faison Frances and Ben are in their sweatpants on a Saturday morning. He has made the coffee, as he always does. She drinks more than her fair share of the pot, but always offers the final half-cup to Ben.

True crime is hot right now. It’s a genre seen across every media you can think of, from podcasts to TV shows to movies and even books. The idea of crime and mystery, of violence against a neighbor or family member—these narratives captivate and fascinate us, for better or for worse.  But after the Dateline

Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover for Bluff by Danez Smith, which will be published by Graywolf Press on August 20, 2024. Preorder thebook here. Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder

Modernity has always been profoundly unsettling. Living in an ever-changing world means that no one really knows how to be a human on any given day, and we all have to feel our way forward in the dark. But that’s precisely why the horror genre exists: to explore that darkness’ farthest edges with us. Through

Etaf Rum’s Evil Eye is a captivating, heart wrenching novel about navigating intergenerational trauma, and finding your identity in a culture where women are not perceived beyond the roles they perform in service of others. Yara, a Palestinian American young woman, spends her days stretching herself thin as she takes care of her two daughters,

There’s a TikTok trend that haunts me lately, finding its way to my phone every chance it gets. In the short videos, posted by hundreds of fresh-faced, beautiful young girls, I watch as they struggle to answer the question “How old are you?” In between the question and their answer, they gag and try to

This Android Hopes You’ll Swipe Right Requiem for the Most Famous Drag King of Our Lifetimes Despite the urban legends she lived to a ripe old age of 15— a comfortable retirement in Santa Clarita, long walks on the beach, lazing in the sun, beloved, after traversing two star-studded decades with the likes of Reese

Back in high school in the 1990s, I was taught history with a capital “H,” the kind of history that focused on a single narrative. It was a view of history that revealed only the narrowest strip of the past, a thin swath of experience from which many people, places, and ideas were excluded. Microhistories

Jami Nakamura Lin begins with a warning: “In the presence of a story—if the story is a good one—time collapses.” This is precisely what she achieves in a genre-bending memoir that collapses past and present, personal and mythical. The Night Parade begins with her attempts to trace the origins of her bipolar disorder that first