Like Juggling Knives: Talking with Rumaan Alam
Rumaan Alam discusses his new novel, That Kind of Mother, the limits of the employer-employee relationship, and the grossness of heterosexual sex.
Posts by tag
saul bellow
18 posts
Saying What Shouldn’t Be Said: A Conversation with Julie Buntin
Julie Buntin discusses her debut novel, Marlena, why writing about teenage girls is the most serious thing in the world, and finding truths in fiction.
Reading across Cultures: A Conversation with Ratika Kapur
Ratika Kapur discusses her latest book, The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma, the disappointing romance of affairs, and how people carry on after doing the unthinkable.
Better Read Saul
Surely one of the healthier ironies of the United States is that its finest postwar novelist was an illegal immigrant from Canada. At The Daily Beast, Michael Weiss writes a…
The Rumpus Interview with Annie Liontas
Annie Liontas talks about her debut novel Let Me Explain You, crafting voices, and the benefits—and occasional pitfalls—of returning to get an MFA after years of writing in the dark.
The Academic as (Insufferable) Hero
Cagey and brainy, Bellow wanted to be the novelist of both the streets and the faculty lounge. Alas, in too much of his work, he serves as a cautionary tale…
An Interview with James Wood
Over at Electric Literature, Steve Paulson interviews legendary literary critic James Wood, who comments on a variety of subjects: what makes a good critic; the plight of reading widely in…
The Rumpus Interview with Daniel Torday
Dan Torday talks about his novel, The Last Flight of Poxl West, the role of fear in fiction, the fabrication of facts in a memoir, and about being “constitutionally unoffendable.”
The Battle for Reputation
In anticipation of Zachary Leder’s upcoming biography, The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, Lee Siegel grapples with the author’s tainted and troubling reputation for Vulture.
A Century of Saul Bellow
I think of myself as a working stiff. If I got up in the morning, and say to myself ‘Well, great writer, what are you going to do today?’ I’d…
Gary Shteyngart on the Feast of Ravelstein
When I assign Herzog to my students, I am essentially bringing a slab of foie gras to a vegan party. While author Gary Shteyngart won’t blurb your book, he did…
Where We’re Going, Where We’ve Been
Literary Hub has posted a gem of an essay from Saul Bellow; he riffs on literary tropes, the trajectory of the novel, and how, even if it’s gotten close, it’s never actually…