Literature

As a kid confused about gender expression, I found the idea of trying on another body very appealing. Growing up in the eighties meant I had a few stories of people inhabiting other bodies to watch and rewatch—the original Freaky Friday, Big, and Like Father, Like Son. And whether one finds the premise of body

Zimbabwe is a former settler colony and, as such, contains multiples. This is why I have always felt compelled to write about this “small place” that I call home. When I started writing my first novel, The Theory of Flight, in 2007, it was very obvious that Zimbabwe, so full of promise in the 1990s,

There’s something inherently charged and dramatic about a dinner party—various individuals, couples, or families coming together to share a meal, perhaps several courses over several hours, with everyone trapped in their seats. No escape, interruption, or distraction. Just the food, and each other’s company.  In real life, the drama of these dinner parties is often

Reading Terrace Story is finding yourself delighted to be in the fairytale, even when you know the witch is coming for you. Charming and devastating in equal measure, this slim trickster novel asks questions of loneliness, enduring connection, and the multiplicity of self. Hilary Leichter, author of Temporary, plays with genre and form in this

Here at Electric Lit, we’re suckers for a good bookshelf. Any kind of bookshelf! Alphabetized shelves, color-coded shelves, shelves that were once organized but have since devolved into a chaotic pile with no rhyme or reason to where anything is placed. Even book stacks can be shelves if you’re determined enough. There’s no wrong way

My daughter was ten months old when I abandoned her for the first time, for five days. I went to an academic conference to present on a prestigious panel. I wobbled up to a podium in long-neglected heels, my breasts aching against my navy, polka-dot dress. I tried to blink away the hundreds of faces

Writing about pop culture and current technology is always a gamble, pitting critique of the present against longevity, a story that will still feel relevant after we’re gone. But for novelists (present company included) who were exposed to the Real World before the, um, real world, reality TV is hardly a trend. We’ve grown up

Father’s Gone and So Is His Arm Worrying About Father’s Arm How will we solve the problem of how Father sleeps on his right arm? He is not comfortable, his arm is under him, it hurts him as it presses into his ribs, and it is hurt by the weight of his body pressing down

As we move into the fall reading season, deeply imagined short stories and inventive linked essays are having a moment alongside novels. What’s thrilling about the books coming out from small presses is the breadth of range—there are intentional and accidental murders, family drama and polycules, medical calamity, geopolitics, and a whole lot of finding

By admirdervisevi - stock.adobe.com András Visky is a Hungarian author living in Romania with a body of work that spans most literary genres, from poetry to drama and fiction to criticism. His first novel, Kitelepítés [Deportation] (Jelenkor, 2022), has taken the Hungarian literary scene by storm and is already in its fifth printing. The book is rooted in

Queer people have been writing historical fiction since before queerness existed—by which I mean, since before it was hammered into an antithesis to heterosexuality during the long nineteenth century. By the turn of the twentieth, queers looking to write about the past had to grapple with new, rigid identity categories that didn’t necessarily reflect how

Violence Is the Only Law in This War Paul Yoon Share article The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon South Ussuri, Primorsky Krai, 1881 April Report Dear Uncle, About the recent tragic and mysterious events here in your outpost, I can now relate this: Thirty-four days ago, in the middle of the night, I

I Narain’s home state of Uttar Pradesh / Reality Images / Adobe Stock t is a grim reality that many important Indian poets are not yet known by the anglophone readers spread across the globe, sadly, because their poetry could not find translators. However, Apurva Narain, himself an author, has tried to take on the

You can tell a lot about a country by the culture it consumes. The Bush era was defined by a brand of bombast befitting a blundering empire: from 24 to 300, Team America to Talladega Nights, the U.S. in the new millennium seemed intent on both dramatizing and lampooning the nation’s new role as dunderheaded

A few years back, Mona Awad found herself in the grips of a skincare addiction. Hauling her laptop with her wherever she went, she watched video after video about Retinol and exfoliants, spellbound by the soothing voices and gently glowing faces of the skinfluencers on her screen. And she bought; she bought; she bought, whatever

Murder has long been a man’s game in literature. Patrick Batemen, Joe Goldberg and Tom Ripley are just a few of the complicated killers who have appeared in novels (and later on screens). Readers take a front row seat to their sadistic minds and delight in their depravity as they kill with few consequences. Similarly,

When I turned eighteen, I started going to a Lincoln Heights music venue called Low End Theory a couple times a month. Hosted every Wednesday, the spot was a hotbed for experimental hip-hop producers. I’d pick up my friend David in Anaheim’s fringes, and then we’d make the hour-long drive to the venue. We’d met

Brando Skyhorse’s new novel My Name is Iris, is a harrowing and, at times, darkly funny exploration of one woman’s complex relationship with her own identity as Mexican American in a slightly fictionalized United States.  Iris (born Inés) is an educated and semi-successful businesswoman. She sees herself as a good citizen, a good mother to