“The Crossed Out Swastika” by Cyrus Cassells
Cyrus Cassells’ fifth collection of poems, The Crossed-Out Swastika, treads the familiar yet treacherous and muddy ground of World War II. For a less skilful poet, such hostile territory may…
Features & Reviews
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NW by Zadie Smith
The fat sun stalls by the phone masts. This is how Zadie Smith opens her latest novel, NW, and how appropriate–that something so fiery and core-hot, so screaming and universal…
The Rumpus Interview With Kevin Moffett
The first time I almost heard of The Silent History from Eli Horowitz was three or so years ago.
The Invisibles by Hugh Sheehy
“Maybe, if you knew nothing about me, I could sit right next to you, and you would never have known it,” says Cynthia, the seventeen-year-old narrator of the title story…
The Rumpus Interview with Scott Hutchins
Longtime Rumpus contributor Scott Hutchins discusses his debut novel, A Working Theory of Love, the Turing test, instant messaging chatbots, and whether technology is actually in danger of isolating and alienating people.
The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Junot Díaz
Junot Díaz is the most interesting kind of… hmm… I was going to use the word “genius,” but maybe that’s not quite right for a man who spends seventeen years honing one brilliant book.
You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake by Anna Moschovakis
Because approaching a lake is a strange thing, especially in the opening pages. Small detours abound.
Sister
It is as if a great house has fallen―sunk into the mire which seethes around the ancestral manor, amid an unrecognizable, Martian landscape. The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” has no name, no real structural substance beyond his vague association with this other guy, an old friend of his.
The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, by Adam Prince
The eleven stories in Adam Prince’s debut collection, The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, feel lived rather than written. Like stories told by strangers in bars when you’re both drunk,…
The Rumpus Interview with Kristín Ómarsdóttir
Icelandic poet, novelist, and playwright Kristín Ómarsdóttir discusses her 2004 novel, Children in Reindeer Woods, which was recently translated into English.
“In Time’s Rift” by Ernst Meister
In Heidegger’s essay ‘The Nature of Language’ he poses the question “When does language speak itself as language?” He answers: “Curiously enough, when we cannot find the right word for…
My Heart Is an Idiot, by Davy Rothbart
Modern literary fiction is so often told from an immersive first person perspective that sometimes the line between the classic essayist and the contemporary novelist disappears. Found Magazine originator and frequent…