Robert Walser’s True Truths
To write about Robert Walser when considering the unsung modernists of the 20th century seems both a falsehood and a complete necessity.
Authors
Night Radio, Collect: Listening to Ray Bradbury
In the dark, being told stories carries weight. There’s a power there, for some stories, that doesn’t seem to exist during the day. When I was a child, my family would take daytrips in the car and when we drove home it would be night. My mom would turn on various audiobooks of stories and…
Writ in Water: The Good Fortunes of Peter Ho Davies
Peter Ho Davies is the author of two collections, The Ugliest House in the World and Equal Love, and the novel The Welsh Girl. His new novel, The Fortunes, is out this month.
An Interview With Ken Sparling
“My greatest influences are those moments in my past where I’ve been surprised, or where I’ve surprised someone. Those are the moments that stay with me. Reading Jonathan Goldstein’s book Lenny Bruce is Dead was one of those instances where I was profoundly surprised.”
Trudy Dittmar Explores the Uncanny Valley
Nature writing may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but add some cinema and cultural intrigue and you’ve got some evocative reading. Such is the case with Trudy Dittmar’s Fauna and Flora, Earth and Sky: Brushes with Nature’s Wisdom, a collection of essays from University of Iowa Press.
René Daumal and the Science of Imaginary Solutions
At the age of 16, soon-to-be writer, editor, and translator René Daumal decided to inhale carbon tetrachloride. Deliberately inhaling carbon tetrachloride is generally a bad idea, but Daumal did it anyway because he wanted to “see,” to hover between life and death in order to understand both more fully.
Daniel Saldaña París’ Among Strange Victims Is the Book You Need in the Post-Trump-Visit-to-Mexico Era
Of all Mexican novels to read in this post-Trump-visit-to-Mexico era, Daniel Saldaña París’ Among Strange Victims reigns supreme. Not that it’s an overtly political novel, but it is one that explores the unbearable absurdities of living in this world.
The Impact of Expat Writers in Uncertain Times: Patrick Leigh Fermor
The year was 1944. Special Operations Executive officer Patrick “Paddy” Leigh Fermor, having spent a year in Cairo, returned to the occupied island of Crete to kidnap a German general. The incident would come to be known as the Kidnap, or Abduction, of General Kreipe.
On Not Reading My Grandfather: The Playwright Alberto Adellach
My grandfather’s work has always loomed large in my mind, made mysterious by its inaccessibility. I never learned to speak Spanish, not fluently, not well – though I maintain the vocabulary of a toddler. Hace calor hoy. Mi color favorito es azul. The “I” centered statements of basic need.