Author Archive

I Don’t Need to Read LOLITA, Because I’ve Read THE LOVER

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I am not saying Lolita is a bad book, or that its fans or Nabokov are complicit in sexism; just that it’s not a story I care about delving into. I always thought this was because I wasn’t open-minded enough as a reader—until I met The Lover, by Marguerite

Reluctantly Reading a Colonial-Era White Male Writer in Mexico

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In this literary chain, we have two old white men surveying Mexico, followed by me, a young, Indian woman, whom most strangers in Oaxaca assumed was Mexican.

The Not-So-Lost Generation: Books About Modern Paris

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If Paris is a moveable feast, then let’s feast on it with more recent works of fiction and nonfiction that describe Paris as it is today, without ignoring the city’s multifaceted history.

The Bookshelves of Others

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I remember the bookshelf of my childhood home as very imposing and very maroon. It had the entire leather-bound World Book Encyclopedia collection, and I spent many afternoons cross-legged with one of the heavy volumes on my lap, reading entries on “China” or “homeostasis.”