A fascinating look at so-called obscenity, then and now.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Novelist Charles Portis Was a True Original
Every Portis fan has a different favorite passage from his novels, but they agree on one thing: no one wrote like Portis.
Posted inArts & Culture, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
The Early Years of Elif Batuman’s Interest in Russian Authors
How a college student’s scholarly investigation into whether Tolstoy was murdered led to her first book, about the people obsessed with Russian literature.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
In Defense of Boris the Russki
Ayşegül Savaş calls into question a kind of racism in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, and laments the liberal reluctance to rebuke discrimination outright, regardless of its targets.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
How The Cult of Masculinity Can Poison Creative Writing Programs
There are numerous ways to tell stories. In her turn MFA program, one writer encountered a literary culture that espoused gendered aesthetics and fostered toxic masculinity.
Posted inNonfiction
‘To Be Polite By Ignoring the Obvious’: Jess Row on Unpacking Whiteness in Literature
“I was looking for texts that seem to go the extra mile in hiding something — texts that almost seem to be begging to be interpreted in terms of what’s not being said.”
Posted inNonfiction
Reading Lessons
You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.
Posted inBooks, Culture, Nonfiction, Story
The Daughter as Detective
A bibliophile tries to understand her father through his favorite Swedish mystery books.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Feminize Your Canon: Olivia Manning
The first in a new series at the Paris Review, featuring “underrated and underread” female authors. This one profiles British Novelist Olivia Manning (1908-1980), known best for her novel School for Love and for her Balkan and Levant trilogies. Manning’s books featured less likable women characters, who might have been better appreciated if they were […]
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Quotes
Series Exhumes Out-of-Print Books by Black Authors
“The Blackist,” a column for Catapult’s magazine, introduces audiences to out-of-print novels written by black authors.