We Were Kids
In English for the first time, Nescio’s Amsterdam Stories retrace timeless youthful abandon with mature yet doleful emotional detachment.
Features & Reviews
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Molly O’Brien: The Last Book I Loved, White Teeth
I was ten years old when 1999 became 2000. My knowledge of the Y2K problem was vague; I could only glean a nebulous mood of panic from overheard newscasts and…
The Rumpus Interview with Tom Bissell
Editor, journalist, memoirist, travel writer, short story writer, humorist, and public intellectual, Tom Bissell is the possessor of enough prizes, recognitions, and stellar reviews to fill a medium-sized moving van.
“Scholars of Sodom”
Roberto Bolaño’s posthumous collection The Secret of Evil will be released tomorrow. In this story drawn from the book, Bolaño imagines V.S. Naipaul’s time in Argentina in 1972. “Naipaul’s vision…
Memory and Work
“I feel totally curious and alive and in control. And almost… magnificent, when I write.” The Guardian converses with Toni Morrison about writing from within, the death of her son,…
Pulitzer Prize Winners
The 2012 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced. Interestingly, there’s no award in the fiction and editorial writing categories. Congrats to Tracy K. Smith whose collection Life on Mars (a…
I Have a Jaw That Seeks Chunks
In Melissa Broder’s second collection, Meat Heart, there is a burgeoning tension between the spiritual life of the imagination and its blood and guts container—the forehead, the hips, the heart—that…
The Body Place Is a Thinking Place
From these two new books, the reader can gather that it isn't just the day that is strong and can withstand change, but the same words can be applied to the speakers of these poems and to Myles herself.
The Last Book I Loved: Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague
Based on the true story of an English midland town in the year 1666 that quarantined itself to sweat out the bubonic plague, Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders: A Novel…
Not Just A Review, My Life and The Fallback Plan
I thought I’d managed to sidestep the purgatorial phase between college and adulthood. Immediately after graduation, a friend hooked me up with a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica. I’d lined…
Recommended Reading
Electric Literature is launching Recommended Reading, a free digital magazine that publishes one original story every week, “each chosen by a great author or editor.” The first issue, to be…