The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke
Yan Lianke’s new novel asks: Are we dreamwalking through our entire lives?
Acts of Listening: An Interview with Analicia Sotelo
Sotelo's poems pull together the mythological and the mundane to synthesize a direct line of communication between the Greek mythological Ariadne and the various personae that inhabit these pages.
Monique Wittig’s Language Beyond Gender
Reading Wittig as abstract (and using abstract as a means of being subtly anti-feminist) is misreading her: her whole point is to restore the body within the text.
The Legend of The Princess Bride
This year, I learned that the emotional background to William Goldman’s famous novel is fictional.
Revolution Sunday by Wendy Guerra
Wendy Guerra, award-winning poet, novelist, actress, and television host, tackles surveillance, paranoia, and the instability of reality in her second novel translated into English.
The Feminism of Women’s Zen Buddhist Memoirs
As I’ve read more Buddhist biographies and memoirs, I’ve begun to notice how women seeking spiritual meaning have been forced to endure the added burden of their gender.
List-Making at the End of the World
In apocalyptic stories, lists seem to provide characters and writers with a sense of control.
The Making of a Poetry Reader
Reading John Donne’s “Air and Angels,” I came to know that if I listened to a poem, I would know it, even if I didn’t understand everything it said.
Female Agency in Dystopian Novels
Recent novels by Leni Zumas and Naomi Alderman reimagine the fate of female agency with the urgency of our time.
Revisiting Joyce Maynard’s At Home in the World
This memoir of nineteen-year-old Maynard’s relationship with fifty-three-year-old JD Salinger is a nuanced exploration of power dynamics in a relationship, and an important #MeToo read.