A Literary Tasting Menu: My Year Abroad by Chang-rae Lee
Simply put, the novel’s heart is not political but sensual.
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joseph conrad
16 posts
Through the Translator’s Lens: Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough’s Objects of Affection
For Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, language provides a stronger connection with the past than nationality alone.
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #148: Daniel Torday
“I also wanted this to be a deeply overtly American book.”
Map-Making: Alex Dimitrov’s Together and By Ourselves
At one point, I write in my margin: There is no X marks the spot for treasure here. The map is the treasure. Which is another way of saying: this book is the bounty; these poems are the gold.
Less Brilliant but More Profound: Denis Johnson’s The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
[I]n Johnson’s whole protean oeuvre, more than any pair of books, Jesus’ Son and The Largesse of the Sea Maiden are like binary stars, locked in orbit, distinct but inseparable, each throwing its light upon the other.
Every Woman Is a Nation unto Herself: A Conversation with Sabina Murray
Sabina Murray discusses the novel Valiant Gentleman, writing characters that are fundamentally different from herself, and confronting issues of colonization.
Literature’s Second-Class Citizens
They’re there but not there. They’re included but their stories don’t fully weave into the story.
The Prison House of English
For the NYRB, Tim Parks meditates on writing in English through investigating various authors who made switches from native tongues to the more economically viable lingua franca, like Nabokov and Conrad—or who…
War Narratives #6: The Rumpus Interview with Phil Klay
When you’re writing fiction, you can follow your own ignorance. You can write something and realize how flawed you are.
The Rumpus Interview with Campbell McGrath
Campbell McGrath talks about his new collection, XX: Poems For The Twentieth Century, capitalism, history, and what it might mean to write a wordless poem.
Plot and Prejudice
At Electric Literature, Matthew Salesses discusses the works of Joseph Conrad and Flannery O’Connor to explore the problem of unconscious prejudice and unintentional racism in writing, and how writers can…
Joseph Conrad’s Thank-You Note to Henry James
Clothed in the wonderful garment of your prose, they have stood, consoling, by my side under many skies,” Conrad wrote. “I trust that you will consent, by accepting this copy,…