In Search of Futures Past
How Marcel Proust’s finances affected his writing.
All posts tagged: Literature
V.S. Naipaul and the Impossibility of Going Home
A brilliant writer, a misogynist, a small-town boy with a haughty, big-city gaze: Naipaul’s life was marked by a sense of doubleness.
Extremes of Disorder
A profile and criticism of Wayne Koestenbaum’s poetry of the subconscious.
Emmanuel Macron’s Grand Narrative
Three contemporary French authors illuminate the president’s divisive neoliberal agenda and how a diversionary ‘Europe under attack’ narrative might be the key to his success.
Rethinking Fitzgerald’s Final Days
What I’d Die for You tells us about Fitzgerald’s troubled final years. And how he turned personal tragedy into his best work.
‘The Story of Memory’: A Conversation with Paula Hawkins
Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on The Train and Into the Water, reflects on two unreliable things: narrators and memory.
Michael Chabon’s Broken World
A conversation with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon.
France’s Unlikely Literary Rebel
Maylis de Kerangal’s “The Heart” combines the language of science, philosophy, and pop culture to create a novel that defies categorization—and frustrates certain literary élites.
You Can Do Anything if You Just Do it Slowly
The best-selling author Lauren Groff on artistic narcissism, Véra Nabokov, and her winding road to success.
Can Lorin Stein Translate Michel Houellebecq Into a Great Writer?
Is Michel Houellebecq’s writing improved when he’s translated into English?
