the new yorker
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Man vs. Terrifying Gigantic Agribusiness
…“grew up in world (S.C.) that wouldn’t accept him,” “needs adulation,” “doesn’t sleep,” was “scarred for life.”…“What’s motivating Hayes?—basic question.” An actor’s notes for a role? A writer’s sketch of a character for a novel? Actually, these are observations by…
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Acclaimed African Author Comes Out as Gay
Supporters of African LGBT rights were so relieved about Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni’s veto of an anti-gay bill that they were nearly blindsided when Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan’s signed a similar bill into law. The law prompted Binyavanga Wainaina, a…
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Revisiting Childhood
Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “You can’t go home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame…” Through a series of autobiographical novels, author…
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A Voice that Hums
Today, the Beats hold a noteworthy place in the American literary tradition, but there was a time when their work was met with resistance. A piece published by The New Yorker focuses on the life and work of one of…
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Bibliophilism: On Love and Addiction
It is possible to give one’s life to books, to dedicate years to collecting, reading, teaching, translating, writing, and studying them. In an essay for the New Yorker, Thomas E. Kennedy, a writer, editor, translator, and professor, reflects on his…
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Reflecting Your Radicalism, No Matter the Cost
Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), known for his poems, plays, and for the initiation of the Black Arts Movement, died on January 9th. Though there have been many articles talking about the man as legend, over at The New Yorker,…
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“Pop,” “Soda,” or “Heaven Bubbles”?
You’ve probably seen this regional-dialect quiz from the New York Times making the rounds on your social networks. You answer questions about your vocabulary and pronunciation, and it tries to determine where in the United States you’re from. But the New Yorker‘s…
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By Any Other Name
How are we affected by our names? An article in The New Yorker by Rumpus interviewee Maria Konnikova discusses the implications of given names as indicators of class and racial backgrounds, and explores the impact that names have on the way…
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When Language Fails
2013 has become the year of the emoji as the pictographs have made their way into iMessages, poem translations, and recently, an art exhibition. Betsy Morais’ article called “Do You Speak Emoji?” refers to emojis as “a new form of…
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The Stories of Osama Alomar
In a recent essay in The New Yorker, Lydia Davis discusses the very short stories of Osama Alomar, a young Syrian writer who has lived in the United States for the past five years. The plight of a writer who…
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The argument for and against “Nice”
Tom Scocca, features editor at Gawker takes on the “newest weapon in the arsenal of privileged” in his recent essay. In response, Malcolm Gladwell writers over at The New Yorker that Being Nice Isn’t Really So Aweful: In being nice…
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A Day in the Life of George Saunders
George Saunders talked to Sky Dylan-Robbins about his writing daily routine in a video interview out now on the New Yorker. When asked about beginning the writing process, he answered, “There’s a mysterious element, a magical element, right? And it’s…