The Only Band That Mattered
The author remembers his time with Joe Strummer and reflects on the band’s definitive new book, The Clash.
Features & Reviews
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John Updike: Writers Reflect
The Rumpus asked writers to share their thoughts on the work and legacy of John Updike, who died this week at the age of 76.
Things I’ve Been Silent About
Azar Nafisi‘s first book, Reading Lolita in Tehran, chronicles an underground book club reading Western Classics under the oppressive Islamic government of Tehran (it subsequently became a favorite book-club book…
Terrifying Nixon-Era Children’s Books
Ever since shoving Bush into his helicopter with an expletive and fantasizing about letting go of Cheney’s wheelchair at the top of a long, steep hill, I find I have…
A Review of Deb Olin Unferth’s Vacation
Obsession distorts the lens through which we view the world; things that once seemed unfathomable become terrifically and terrifyingly plausible.
The Rumpus Interview with Andrew Sean Greer
I've heard other novelists say this, which makes me feel like I'm not crazy, that the problem with every novel is finding the key to it, finding the way in.
Jorge Luis Borges: “Reading has to be a happiness”
“For me death is a hope, the irrational certitude of being abolished, erased and forgotten,” says Borges in this 1984 interview conducted by Professor of Philosophy Tomas Abraham, translated here…
An OG Titan of Industry and the Future of the American City
Before Dick Fuld oversaw the implosion of Lehman Brothers, and before John Thain had to apologize for accepting an outrageous bonus from Merrill Lynch, there was Frank Woolworth. The gloss and…
Complex Innovative Literary Prize
The Warwick Prize for Writing is an “innovative new literature prize that involves global competition, and crosses all disciplines. The Prize will be given biennially for an excellent and substantial…
Why You Should Not Be Afraid to Read “Little Women”
If anyone could be said to have really written in a garret, alone and oblivious, it is Louisa May Alcott.
The Universal Threat of Loneliness
“The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz begins with the question, “What does the contemporary self want?” He answers after two sentences: “Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming…
On Teaching Poetry to Women in Prison
I was nineteen. Prison seemed sexy and foreign—as did most forbidden things.