Literature

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is an opportunity to recognize the diversity and contributions of Native Americans throughout U.S. history, an alternative to the overly simplistic and mythologized narrative of Columbus Day. This year in particular, indigenous authors have published eclectic, riveting new literary works. From witty romantic comedies to gory thrillers to ultramodern poetry collections, the

I Am an Eight-Year-Old Orpheus Domenico Starnone Share article The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl From Milan by Domenico Starnone Between the ages of eight and nine, I set out to find the pit of the dead. At school, in Italian class, I had recently learned about the legend of Orpheus and how

It’s been thirty-two years since Eric Drooker published his groundbreaking tale of destitution in the city, Flood! A surreal, wordless graphic novel, Flood! was inspired by the work of woodcut artists Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward, Jungian psychology, and the pitched battles Drooker witnessed in his native East Village between police and the working-class activists

Luis Jaramillo’s novel The Witches of El Paso is rich, captivating, propulsive. Jaramillo has created a complex world that asks the reader from the very beginning to open their eyes to magic, to greater possibilities in our lives. Through two alternating timelines, Jaramillo introduces us to present-day Marta, an overworked attorney and mother who has

I’ve been reading from outside of Phoenix, where there have been over 120 days of 100 degree temperatures as summer comes to a close.  With Hurricane Helene devastating the Southeast and war spreading in the Middle East, the uncertainty about our collective futures—whether it is from climate change, the loss of loved ones, or displacement

Stories of immortal bloodsuckers spanned centuries, continents, and cultures long before Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897. And while Stoker’s gothic horror novel wasn’t the first to feature vampires, it’s arguably the most famous vampire literary work and defined the modern vampire’s abilities and weaknesses (hopefully you’re stocked up on garlic).  More than 100 years

After my mum died, I decided I had to do something with her paintings. She’d painted as a hobby throughout her life, and they’d accumulated in drawers all over the house. I felt that if I didn’t do something with them, who else would? I imagined they’d eventually become my kids’ problem and they’d get

An Excerpt from Mother Archive by Erika Morillo When Papi “disappeared,” my paternal grandfather paid Balaguer a visit to the presidential palace. He was allowed in only because as young boys, they had gone to school together in the city of Navarrete, the memories of those days softening the president into hearing Abuelo out. “Señor

Do you scrutinize the acknowledgements pages of the books you love? Do you peer between the lines to build a story in your mind of how those books were made? We’ve demolished the myth of the lone romantic genius madly scribbling in a garret until he is discovered and published to startling acclaim, but a

The Beauty and Audacity of Black Detroit Detroit Public Library, Burton Historical Collection Major flooding occurred in the lower levels of the Detroit Public Library–Main Library, during the torrential rain storm on June 25, 2021. Every room and area of the lower levels were impacted by the relentless downpour. —Detroit Free Press The sky broke

In South Africa, novels have always been written in a society of fundamental divisions, in particular racial ones, and in a country where culture, language, land and other resources are perpetually contested. Most South African literature, especially since the mid-20th century, deals with colonialism and Apartheid and their aftermath, whether directly or indirectly. It was,

Forty years after the publication of Leaving the Land, Pulitzer Prize finalist Douglas Unger returns with his fifth novel, Dream City, an excoriating tale of hope, greed, and betrayal in Las Vegas. C.D. Reinhart is Unger’s fatally flawed protagonist, a failed actor bent on self-improvement who is forced to be the public face of his

There’s nothing more delicate than a line. In the world of my Triple Sonnets, my lines consist of approximately ten syllables each, mimicking our natural speaking pattern of saying ten syllables and then pausing. I love the tightness of this line—how plot, conceit, and yes, romance, are brought out in a compact yet deliberate space.

The Life of a Muse Is No Life at All Alysandra Dutton Share article Sophy by Alysandra Dutton 1882 A year before she dies, Sophy has a visitor in the hospital. It is the renowned painter John Millais, of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He brings everything: paint, palettes, linseed oil, stretched canvas already prepped a soft

In Clement Goldberg’s madcap and campy debut novel, cats, plants, alien intelligences, and a group of human misfits conspire to make us all freer and more joyfully connected. New Mistakes offers a hilarious, surreal, and sexy new vision of queer collectivity—one that involves the living earth and intelligences from beyond—while a cast of mundane and

With his coat collar raised against spitting rain, a Humphrey Bogart type might have walked the streets of Choe Myeongik’s Pyongyang. At least that’s how I see Pyongil, the main character of “Walking in the Rain,” published in 1936 in northern Korea, the first story from the collection Patterns of the Heart. Gazing up at

Books about ballet dancers are, invariably, books about growing up. Whether it is a young child desperate to win a place at a ballet school, a ballerina escaping from a dangerous relationship, or a memoir about finding a sense of belonging in the dance world, ballet books return again and again to the pain and

“I am violence! I am violence!”  This is not the war cry of a gladiator in the arena, but the primal scream of a trader on the floor in HBO’s financial drama, Industry. The words belong to Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia), following his threat to crack people’s heads during a tense trade, which inspires his