Fiction

Theater of Shadows

Fiction by Steven Millhauser February 27, 2020

Beneath or beyond the performances lay the fascination of the shadow-world itself, with its hiddenness, its refusal of color, its indifference to familiar effects of visual precision and detail.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Back Draft: Emily Wilson

By Ben Purkert and Emily Wilson February 24, 2020

The translator on being drawn to Homer, and the timelessness of toxic masculinity.

Back Draft Arts & CultureLit World

Fiction

Notes from a Nothing

Fiction by Jean McGarry February 13, 2020

Here I am at graduation, lifting a leg under the white gown of purity, to show off a new pump.

Arts & Culture

Commentary

Hanif Abdurraqib and the Performance of Grief

By Jay Deshpande February 10, 2020

On the particular braiding of grief and nostalgia that animates the poet-slash-critic's work.

Arts & CultureLit World

Review

The Impertinence of Counterculture

By Nicholas Cannariato January 29, 2020

A review of Living in a World That Can’t Be Fixed by Curtis White

Arts & Culture

Poetry

Morning

Poetry by Yi Sang, translated from the Korean by Michael Joseph Walsh and Jae Kim January 24, 2020

there’s so much of it, this night

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

Lives

With Jazz on the Turntable and a Drink in His Hand

By Francis Wilkinson January 22, 2020

In the dark nights after long days, the music gave our fathers something to cling to.

Arts & Culture

Poetry

Portrait of a Boy with Grief

Poetry by Wale Ayinla December 6, 2019

you will open your wounds / and make them a garden

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

Review

Everything Hiding the Secret of Its Taste

By Francesca Giacco December 5, 2019

Marie NDiaye’s new novel, The Cheffe, is an ode to wasted love.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Robert Gipe: A Cure for Despair

By Graham Oliver November 25, 2019

The author and activist on gallows humor, the need to tell stories, and helping communities thrive.

Arts & CultureClassUSA

Essay

Artist in Residence

By Lawrence Levi November 19, 2019

What I learned—and didn’t—from living with a jazz legend.

Arts & Culture

Review

Heavier Than Air

By Roslyn Bernstein November 7, 2019

Colombian artist Ruby Rumié confronts domestic violence.

Arts & CultureClassGender

Essay

Out of the Maze

By Sandy Allen September 26, 2019

Searching for meaning in madness at London's Bethlem Museum of the Mind.

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

Poetry

Sculpture

Poetry by Mieczysław Jastrun, translated from the Polish by Dzvinia Orlowsky and Jeff Friedman September 10, 2019

That early star is not for us.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Susan Choi: The Limitation of Perspective

By Christopher M. Hood August 23, 2019

The author of “Trust Exercise” on her evolving narrative preoccupations and the radical contradictions of adolescence.

Arts & Culture

EssayLives

Jasmine Fingers

By Lubna Safi August 22, 2019

How does the poem keep us there? in memory? in the traces? keep us coming back?

Arts & CultureConflict

Interview

Catherine Chung: The Vast and the Intricate

By Steph Cha July 11, 2019

The author discusses the limits of identity, the power of ownership, and the narrative beauty of math.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Kristen Arnett: It Starts With An Image

By Victoria Brown July 3, 2019

The writer on depicting experienced sex scenes, finding humor in the absurd, and the exciting possibilities of the gross.

Arts & Culture

Essay

An Infrastructure of Innocence

By DJ Cashmere June 25, 2019

On a trip to Alabama, reckoning with monuments, myths, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Arts & CultureRace

Interview

Becoming a Map for Survival: Interview with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

By Lisa Factora-Borchers June 18, 2019

The writer on resisting racist ableist erasure in her latest essay collection about disability justice.

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

Commentary

Arundhati Roy: “Literature provides shelter”

By Neel Dhanesha May 20, 2019

In this year’s PEN America Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, Arundhati Roy spoke about the power of literature to challenge governments.

PEN World Voices Arts & Culture

Commentary

Six Writers on the Power of Telling the Truth

By Fran Bigman May 16, 2019

At a panel at this year’s PEN America World Voices Festival, six writers discuss the empowering effects of sharing difficult experiences.

PEN World Voices Arts & Culture

Commentary

Two “Artists of the Air” on the Limits of Time and Space

By Alan Scherstuhl May 16, 2019

At a panel at this year’s PEN America World Voices Festival, high-wire walker Phillippe Petit and extreme-action pioneer Elizabeth Streb discuss their death-defying art.

PEN World Voices Arts & Culture

Commentary

Five Poets Reflect on the Life and Work of Yusef Komunyakaa

By Spencer Green May 16, 2019

At a panel at this year’s PEN America World Voices Festival, five poets discuss the pain and self-actualization in the poems of Komunyakaa.

PEN World Voices Arts & Culture

Interview

Fernando A. Flores: “The oldest stories of this land were fantastical in essence”

By KrisAnne Madaus April 26, 2019

An emerging voice in fiction discusses writing as performance, translating rhythm into narrative, and writing the “anti-research” novel.

AmericasArts & CultureLit World

Interview

Hilary Hahn: Entering the Sublime

By Emily Fragos April 25, 2019

The renowned violinist on the joys and intensities of creative life.

Arts & Culture

Report

Here We Abandon All Destinations

By Amanda Feinman March 28, 2019

A boundary-pushing drag bar in Brooklyn promises more freedom for us all

Arts & CultureGender

Lives

The Grandmother Character

By Maria Kuznetsova March 19, 2019

I thought: I would never write a fictional scene like this, because it was too obvious—the art butting up against reality, as though my story held some kind of portentous power.

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

EssayLives

Dancing Alvin Ailey’s Revelations in Black and Brown

By Jamila Wilkinson March 15, 2019

How can I perform a story that isn’t mine to tell?

Arts & CultureRace

Interview

Back Draft: Natasha Trethewey

By Ben Purkert and Natasha Trethewey February 26, 2019

The acclaimed poet discusses a devastating fire, and the painterly in poetry.

Back Draft Arts & CultureLit World

Review

The Carnegie International Explores its Past With an Eye to the Future

By Roslyn Bernstein February 7, 2019

The exhibition's 57th edition casts a wide net, and the result is bold and thoughtful.

Arts & Culture

Fiction

Enacting Africa

Fiction by EC Osondu December 26, 2018

“Jambo!” my client greeted me, over-cheerfully. “Jambo!” I hailed back, slightly accentuating the pitch of my voice to match his high-octane enthusiasm.

AfricaArts & CultureClassWork & Money

Review

Always On

By Kyle Paoletta December 18, 2018

A. S. Hamrah's film criticism is a welcome corrective in an outmoded field.

Arts & Culture

Review

Carrie Mae Weems on a Century of American Violence

By Laura Feinstein December 3, 2018

The artist and multimedia storyteller has created a haunting installation for the Cornell Council of the Arts’ 2018 Biennale.

Arts & Culture

Interview

A.J. Jacobs: Gratitude and the Global Supply Chain

By Phineas Lambert November 20, 2018

A writer's quest to thank everyone involved in the production of his morning coffee took him on a journey through the benefits of mental positivity and the complexities of global commerce.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Listening for Ghost-Voices

By Anita Roy November 9, 2018

A novel borne out of an earthquake, a departed friend, and a translation from which lost voices rise.

Arts & CultureGenderSex

Interview

Idra Novey: Silence Is Complicity

By Mickie Meinhardt November 7, 2018

The novelist, poet, and translator on the responsibilities we hold, the consequences of silence, and writing cross-genre.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Heather Havrilesky: Digging for Something Real

By Mickie Meinhardt November 1, 2018

The author of “What If This Were Enough?” on honest writing, raising kids with social media, and the growing pains of a constantly-wired culture.

Arts & Culture

Commentary

(How to) Suffer Well: Depression Sitting Still

By Sihan Tan October 24, 2018

Is the act of enduring hardship a virtue, or just an exercise in malaise?

Arts & CultureAsia & Oceania

Fiction

Destroy All Monsters

Fiction by Jeff Jackson October 8, 2018

She likes how he listens, likes the easy cadence of their conversation. Despite herself, she moves a little closer, intrigued by his faint aroma of spicy cologne and sour sweat. It’s not a bad smell.

Arts & Culture

Review

A Deliberately Wonky Sense of Morality

By Michele Moses October 5, 2018

On Andrew Martin’s debut novel, Early Work.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Miscellaneous Files: Olivia Laing

By Mary Wang October 4, 2018

In the first installment of our multimedia interview series, Olivia Laing uses screenshots to explain how the secretarial parts of writing can be both pleasurable and productive.

Miscellaneous Files Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Saadia Faruqi: Writing a Muslim Protagonist for Young Readers

By Ilana Masad September 27, 2018

The Pakistani-American author and activist on the burden of representation, the hunger for perfection, and the most important things about writing for kids.

Arts & Culture

Essay

The Franz Kafka Marriage Manual for Young Ladies

By Rebecca Schuman September 25, 2018

What to do with the art of a man more monstrous than the monster he created?

Arts & CultureLit World

Report

Chengdu Cool: The Rise of Sichuan’s Homegrown Hip Hop

By Yi-Ling Liu August 29, 2018

The city of Chengdu is raising China’s new generation of rappers. They are playful, provocative, and boldly assert a distinct regional sound that the public has not heard before. But under the tightening grip of the government censor, can Chengdu’s hip-hop artists keep their cool?

Arts & CultureAsia & Oceania

Interview

Ada Limón: Connected to the Universe

By Diana Delgado July 24, 2018

The critically acclaimed poet on taking risks, accepting grace, and holding the world’s pain.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Brian Turner: A Music That Suits Our Time on the Planet

By Rick Moody July 17, 2018

The poet on his debut album—a tribute to and collaboration with his late wife, by The Interplanetary Acoustic Team—and the role of music in literary practice.

Arts & CultureLit World

Review

Seeing Art in Medical Archives

By Roslyn Bernstein June 27, 2018

On both sides of the Atlantic, art and medicine mingle.

Arts & Culture

Essay

White Girls at the Table

By Lynn Steger Strong May 8, 2018

On the privilege of disappearing.

Arts & CultureRace

Interview

Lotte Geeven: Crowdsourcing the Songs of Sand

By Jennifer Gersten May 7, 2018

The Dutch artist has enlisted helpers from around the globe to help her reproduce the unique sounds of the world’s singing deserts.

Deserts Arts & Culture

Interview

Back Draft: Carl Phillips

By Carl Phillips and Ben Purkert May 3, 2018

The inaugural installment of a new series about the revision process in poetry. First up: Carl Phillips.

Back Draft Arts & CultureLit World

Essay

Looking for Katalin Street

By Rebecca Chace March 26, 2018

A real-life exploration of Magda Szabo's novel.

Arts & CultureLit World

Review

The Slave Theater Lives On Through Crystal Z. Campbell

By Kathleen Massara February 23, 2018

A short, fragmented film is a reminder of what was lost.

Arts & CultureRace

Interview

Carmen Maria Machado’s Beautiful Bad Dreams

By Emma Copley Eisenberg February 19, 2018

The author of Her Body and Other Parties talks about queerness, writing good sex scenes, and what scares her the most.

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

Essay

Shawn Walker, Cultural Anthropologist

By Roslyn Bernstein February 7, 2018

A visit with the photographer and activist, whose first solo retrospective is now on exhibit at Steven Kasher Gallery.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Theater for a Now Audience: A Roundtable

By Carla Stockton January 17, 2018

Today's playwrights and directors weigh in on politics in theater and the state of the stage in a time of upheaval.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Underneath the Pavement, A Swelling of Grief

By John Vincler January 9, 2018

Seeing Dubuffet in St. Louis, then Kahlil Robert Irving in New York.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Eli Valley: Let the Horror Speak for Itself

By Matthew Miles Goodrich January 4, 2018

The cartoonist on taking back Judaism and the role of satire in America today.

Arts & CulturePolitics

Interview

Jonas Bendiksen: Among the Messiahs

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford December 29, 2017

Around the world, men claim to be the Second Coming of Christ. The photographer recounts the years he spent documenting—and befriending—six of them.

Arts & CultureReligion

Commentary

The Family Dolls, Featuring Charlie, Leslie, & More

By John Reed December 20, 2017

Why it's okay to play with Manson family paper dolls: The first six installments of John Reed's Manson Family Paper Doll book. Print & Color Yourself!

Arts & CultureHistoryUSA

EssayPhotography

The Incendiary Photography of Jill Freedman

By Roslyn Bernstein December 6, 2017

Irreverent and incisive photographs of a 1968 camp on the National Mall evoke the power of protest.

Arts & Culture

Fiction

Those Years in Montreal

Fiction by Alex Pruteanu November 22, 2017

You would not believe what the secret police is interested in. Fetishes, preferences, noises made in bed, how you brush your teeth.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Surrealist Refugees in the Tropics

By Terese Svoboda November 17, 2017

Jacqueline Lamba, the scandalously beautiful artist and aquatic burlesque performer who enchanted Frida Kahlo, meets Suzanne Cesaire, known as the Black Panther of Négritude.

Arts & CultureLit World

Commentary

Armistice Day in the Virtual Trenches

By Ed Winstead November 11, 2017

The First World War ended a century ago, but its violence persists.

Arts & CultureConflictHistoryLit World

Lives

Primed for Mysticism and Scared to Death

By Arielle Angel October 23, 2017

A writer reckons with Judaism, the writing life, and the allure of fundamentalism.

Arts & CultureReligion

Review

An Inspired Time for American Poetry

By Ben Purkert October 19, 2017

Fifteen debut poetry collections that define the cultural moment.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Chris Kraus: After Kathy Acker

By Nicole Miller October 16, 2017

The novelist, critic, and biographer on radical localism, the art of compensation, and the editor as auteur.

Arts & CultureSex

Interview

Holly Fitzgerald: Lost in the Jungle Again

By Sadia Shepard October 5, 2017

Holly Fitzgerald discusses her memoir of a desperate month in the Peruvian wilderness.

Arts & CultureTravel & Adventure

Commentary

The Many Ivans

By Rowan Hisayo Buchanan September 14, 2017

Weiqing Yuan on being a Chinese street artist in Times Square

Arts & CultureWork & Money

Essay

Aughts

By Jasmine Dreame Wagner September 11, 2017

Recalling art, sex, and personal politics in the twenty-first century.

Arts & CultureUSA

Interview

Jeff VanderMeer: Life Apocalyptic

By Puloma Mukherjee August 7, 2017

The writer dubbed the “Weird Thoreau” on ecological fiction and the cult of climate-change denial.

Arts & CultureClimate & Environment

Review

When Loving New York Means Crying Over a Lunch Counter

By Eryn Loeb August 3, 2017

Jeremiah Moss's blog-turned-book stands as an impassioned work of advocacy on behalf of a city that’s slipping away.

AmericasArts & Culture

Report

Eating with the Enemy

By Lilly Lampe July 31, 2017

“Every American has a relationship with Iraq,” says artist Michael Rakowitz, the creator of Enemy Kitchen, “whether they like it or not.”

Arts & CultureConflict

Review

The Tangled World of Bodies

By Jenessa Abrams July 26, 2017

Danya Kukafka’s debut novel brings new depth to the tropes of the thriller

Arts & Culture

Interview

Mithkal Alzghair: Dancing Displacement

By Sara Elkamel July 25, 2017

The Syrian choreographer on his latest performance.

Arts & CultureMENAPolitics

Interview

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

By Dan Sheehan and Téa Obreht July 20, 2017

Téa Obreht and Dan Sheehan consider the finest on-camera smooches.

The Kiss Arts & CultureSex

Interview

William E. Jones: Urgency and Impermanence

By Jordan A. Rothacker July 19, 2017

Filmmaker, artist, and writer William E. Jones discusses his new film.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Video ad Absurdum

By John Washington July 5, 2017

How a collection of fifteen thousand Jerry Maguire VHS tapes reveals the ugly underbelly of the media-entertainment industry.

Arts & CultureUSA

Interview

Victoria Redel: The Lifelong Power of Female Friendships

By Annie DeWitt June 27, 2017

The writer on making hard choices, being raised by feminists, and her latest novel's newfound wisdom.

Arts & CultureFamily & RelationshipsGender

Commentary

The Greater (Grater) Divide

By Roslyn Bernstein June 19, 2017

Considering recent contemporary art in Israel.

Arts & CultureMENA

Essay

Nina Simone in Liberia

By Katherina Grace Thomas June 19, 2017

The singer went to Africa, she said, in search of peace, or a husband, or maybe the feeling of home.

AfricaArts & Culture

Essay

The Seedcake Kiss

By Gabe Habash June 16, 2017

On Bloomsday, reflecting on the famous kiss.

The Kiss Arts & Culture

Commentary

August Sander: The Intimacy of Time

By Alex Zafiris June 15, 2017

The singular power of portraiture's 20th century master.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Tine Thing Helseth: Listening to the Heart and Mind of a Musical Genius

By Emily Fragos June 15, 2017

Norway’s foremost trumpet soloist plays without a safety net.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Amy Benson: Like a Cloud You Walk Into and Then Out of Again

By Julia Bosson June 11, 2017

The essayist on the first person and the end of humanity.

Arts & CultureClimate & Environment

Interview

Osama Alomar: The Whole World Is Fighting

By Nissa Rhee June 9, 2017

The novelist on Syria, censorship, and the safety—and power—of metaphor.

Arts & CultureMENA

Interview

Julia Fierro: Only People Can Let Us Down

By Jane Ratcliffe June 7, 2017

The novelist on her struggle with mental health, the limits of empathy, and the necessity of suffering.

Arts & CultureClassRace

Commentary

The Afterlife of the Party

By Chloe Lizotte June 5, 2017

What the late Glenn O'Brien can teach us about grieving online.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Mother Tongue

By Yoojin Grace Wuertz June 5, 2017

For a bilingual new mother, parenting becomes an experiment in identity—both her child's and her own.

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

Interview

Aurora De Armendi: Where Is the Center of the Ocean?

By Meaghan Winter June 5, 2017

The Cuban American artist on migration, detention, and what it means to ask open-ended questions.

Arts & CultureConflict

Review

A Cross-generational Curse

By Kyle Paoletta May 30, 2017

Exploring the Ugandan imagination in Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s debut novel.

AfricaArts & CultureRace

Fiction

Isadora

By Amelia Gray May 15, 2017

She left the tobacco tin on his desk but brought the book to him, holding it pinched at the base of its spine like a rat she intended to thrash against a wall.

Arts & CultureEurope

Interview

Sara Erenthal: Salvage Sketching

By Lauren LeBlanc May 11, 2017

The artist on her public works, relationship with her faith, and art as an escape.

Arts & Culture

Review

Tense Because We Lived

By Tracy O’Neill May 9, 2017

On Robert Lopez's latest novel.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Thana Faroq: The Streets Are Not Empty

By Joanna Naples-Mitchell May 6, 2017

The photographer and visual storyteller on daily life during conflict in Yemen, the necessity of conversation, and why she’s not a war photographer.

Arts & CultureConflictMENA

Review

Book of Revelations: On Patricia Lockwood’s Memoir Priestdaddy

By Eryn Loeb May 2, 2017

What does it do to a person to have a priest for a father?

Arts & CultureReligion

Interview

Piotr Florczyk: Gateways To Sentience

By Susan Kay Anderson, David Axelrod, and James Benton April 25, 2017

The poet, translator, and essayist on his latest collection of poems.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Marc Ribot: Barriers to Participation

By Farhad Mirza and Anna Calori April 3, 2017

The musician and activist on the creative life of cities, the fight for economic justice in the digital era, and his quest to rescue public spaces from corporate gangsters and antipluralist militants.

Arts & CultureClassJustice

Interview

Siri Hustvedt: Both Sides of the Chasm

By Meara Sharma April 3, 2017

The novelist and science writer on gender in publishing, the pleasures of neuroscience, and the necessity of rage.

Arts & CultureHealth

Interview

Robert Capa and Gerda Taro: Partners in Love and Photography

By Jennifer Gersten March 29, 2017

A new book by Marina Budhos and Marc Aronson sheds light on an unsung collaboration.

Arts & CultureEurope