Big Picture, Small Picture: Context for J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories
Monday, April 6, 1953, J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories is published by Crown. The collection, with its wry and spiritually wounded characters, immediately garners Salinger praise and solidifies his reputation (after 1951’s The Catcher in the Rye) as an important voice in American fiction.
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “The Storm” by Maria Kuznetsova
Despite humanity’s ever-expanding realms of knowledge and increasing mastery over planet earth and its inhabitants, there is still so much beyond our grasp, so much of which we’re ignorant. In “The Storm” (Ninth Letter) by Maria Kuznetsova, a young narrator Sashie must reckon with a world that is becoming more
Silent Anniversary
Believe it or not, for better or worse, March marked the thirteenth anniversary of Iraq’s American invasion. Maybe you saw it on your newsfeed. Most likely you didn’t. But as far as remembrances go, the output was business as usual—we got the obligatory flag-waving on the local stations, the
Review: THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS by Eric Weiner
The author of The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World’s Most Creative Places, from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley says our ideas about creativity underestimate the importance of place. But how did creative clusters arise in such varied cultures: Renaissance Florence, The Song Dynasty, Edinburgh during the
In the Colectivo
In Havana, the collective taxis near the capitol line up on the street that juts out from the Hotel Inglaterra, around the corner from its big patio café with its striped awning and wicker chairs, across from the Parque Central, down a small alley that leads off into the
On Questioning Narrative Sequence
At the Contemporary Museum of Art in Montreal, Ragnar Kjartansson’s “The Visitors” plays on nine screens in a dark theater. Each screen features a single musician set to the backdrop of a room in a chateau, which is in disrepair: one woman in a pale lace dress plays cello
Satire as Survival: The Necessity of Humor in Turkey Today
We’ve been told not to use the metro. We’ve lived through warnings during Nevruz, the Kurdish New Year, to not go out due to potential clashes on the streets. The German Consulate and German schools in Istanbul shut down for two days ahead of the weekend due to a
“Ghosts Usually Accompany Me through My Poems”: An Interview with Diane Seuss
Words just seem to have more possibilities in the poems of Diane Seuss. They become more flexible, more magnetic, attracting and accumulating meaning and music in a speedy rush to surprise, a hard-won clarity about what it’s like to be here, be human. Diane is the author of three
Writing Travel: A Process of Unmooring
Sara Majka‘s debut story collection, Cities I’ve Never Lived In, begins with movement: “Maybe ten or eleven years ago, when I was in the middle of a divorce from a man I still loved, I took the train into the city. We were both moving often during this time,
This Spring’s Must-Reads
The warmer weather brings with it some of the best publications of the year, and here are four of our spring favorites. So Sad Today Melissa Broder March 15 Grand Central $15.99 Poet and Vice columnist Melissa Broder is undoubtedly one of the best essay stylists at work today.