Kawabata Yasunari’s House of the Sleeping Beauties and the Male Gaze
In his 1961 novella, Kawabata takes the idea of the male gaze and makes it concrete, a laboratory in which to test our preconceptions about masculinity and male privilege.
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“We are forgetting what has already happened in Cancún”: An Interview with Juan Villoro
The satirization of the all-inclusive resort, a symbol of international tourism, could only be accomplished in a meaningful way by a titan of Mexican letters like Juan Villoro. Not only does he have the qualifications, but he has a unique capacity to create absurdist characters.
Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey
In Miranda Popkey’s debut novel, conversation has the power to shape the story of a life.
The Narrative of Breast Cancer
Anne Boyer joins others, like Susan Sontag, Nina Riggs, Audre Lorde, and Kathy Acker, who push against and question the breast cancer narrative conventions.
Beginning a Bildungsroman
A tantalizing bildungsroman beginning convinces the reader not only that the protagonist is worth listening to, or that the world of the novel is worth observing, but also that there is an interesting friction between the narrator and her surroundings.
Begin Again: On Endings in Nonfiction
Talking, or writing, about endings is hard—whether it’s the end of a marriage, the end of a life, or the end of a book (lest one spoil the conclusion). Life rarely offers sudden and definitive endings or epiphanic conclusions. Rather, events leading up to the end seem to be a slow unfolding, occasionally bleeding into…
Judaism in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” and “Ask for a Convertible”
How does one raise a child to be culturally Jewish, to speak Hebrew and find meaning in the familial and ritualistic aspects of the holidays, without going to synagogue, fasting, or talking about Hashem? How can we explain to our son that he can be American but also Israeli?
Mystery, Fragmented Memory, and Language
Poems by Laura Kasischke and Valzhyna Mort explore the power that a fragment of language can have—especially a fragment heard long ago, and recalled in a space somewhere between recollection and invention.
Food and Power in Ruth Reichl’s Save Me the Plums
Reichl’s new memoir tells the story of a nation’s heyday and financial collapse, tracing the interconnection between food and money.