Katie Kitamura Archive
Katie Kitamura’s Explorations of Separation
Katie Kitamura’s most recent novels are like mirror images: though their titles suggest that their subjects are opposing themes—separation in one and intimacy in the other—both novels show how our lives are bound up in the lives of others, including those from whom we wish to separate.
Possession and Loss in Gone to the Forest
The fictional, nameless nation in Katie Kitamura’s 2012 novel is a country of men obsessed with possession. They care to possess land, money, women. What use these things might be to them is hardly of any interest. The main thing is to own them, to overpower them, and only
Notes on Longing
Longing—the menace of love, or the loss of it—is not so unlike Adrienne Rich’s description of reading a poem: “prismatic meanings lit by each others’ light.” It’s the hope that someone activates in us something that has been a mystery even to ourselves.
Must-Reads for 2017
very new year gives us the chance to be swept away by new books, and here are some of this winter’s best.