The Landscape of Memory
For most of us, memory supplies meaning and connection to our past selves, our place of origin, a greater world. Memory gives us meaning.
Critical Essays
Ugliness in Sonallah Ibrahim’s That Smell and Notes from Prison
Despite the trouble and humiliation Ibrahim endured as a political prisoner and later as a writer in attempting to publish his work, the timeless value of his lessons is undeniable: the impositions of decency and social and literary norms often serve only to exacerbate the problems they claim to denounce.
The Secret Horror of The Haunting of Hill House
A secret horror isn’t magically eradicated because its spoken aloud. Rather, its implications spread, deepen, further infiltrating our complex web of relationships, our motivations, our dreams. In fact, some horrors can’t be named; the words fail us.
Henry James on Honoré Daumier
For an artist whose career ended with little recognition, the yearly international exhibitions featuring Daumier’s work attest to the staying power of his vision. For James, this embodies the filial connection between the artist and the novelist—with all the love and strife that implies.
Grace Paley and The Storyteller’s Pain
“Good Night and Good Luck” and “Debts,” by Grace Paley, are kinetic, and suggest more than is on the page: that a good story is one that’s told, and retold, written and read, with the goal of connecting people in different places and across generations, bringing everyone involved some level of immortality.
The Power of Reading
For Ocean Vuong, Jesmyn Ward, and Jaquira Diaz, reading and writing became necessities early on when their classrooms, families, and streets confined them, left them feeling othered and uncertain of their identities.
Shakespeare’s Scheming Women
Before Lady Macbeth took center stage as Shakespeare’s leading femme fatale, the bard experimented with a number of scheming women, most notably in his first works: the trio of history plays covering the tumultuous reign of Henry VI.
Child Sexuality and the Never Filmed Scene in Stephen King’s It
There is a part of King’s iconic novel that has been left out of both of its film chapters (as well as previous adaptations). And while I understand and agree with the filmmakers’ decision to leave it out, I admit I would be awed by anyone who attempted to put it on the screen.
“Unassimilation” and Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Harbart
Writing within the form of the novel yet against its western traditions, Bhattacharya’s presence in the international English literary sphere beckons the reader to look closer into the chaos.