Nonfiction

  • Griffis in Fukui

    Twenty-seven-year-old William E. Griffis, a native of Philadelphia, took a leave of absence from Rutgers Theological Seminary in the fall of 1869 in order to accept a three-year position as a teacher of natural science in Fukui, a Japanese feudal domain (feudalism ended in the fall of 1870) just beginning to modernize. Arriving in Yokohama…

  • A Foreword to Andrew Lytle

    Andrew Lytle, who has recently attained his eightieth birthday, is one of the most original and significant figures in Southern letters. To those who know him and his work, such a statement is a truism; but Lytle's writing is not so widely known, nor his place in the region's literary history so secure, that his…

  • An Interview with Shelby Foote

    Shelby Foote is the author of six novels – Tournament, Follow Me Down, Love in a Dry Season, Shiloh, Jordan County, and September September – as well as his magnificent historical work in three large volumes, The Civil War: A Narrative, which is already considered a classic. Mr. Foote lives in Memphis, Tennessee, where he…

  • The Women Wait

    I remember Yiannoula bringing huge balls of fresh cheese to our house, cheeses larger than soccerballs. They were wrapped in cloth, and fat drops of milk would stain the flagstones as she carried them across the courtyard to where my grandfather waited, near the door of the storeroom. Half of it would be sliced and…

  • John Williams: Plain Writer

    " plain (plan) adj. 1. clear or distinct to the eye or ear: persons in plain sight. 2. clear to the mind; evident, manifest, or obvious: to make one's meaning plain. 3. conveying the meaning clearly or simply; easily understood: plain talk. 4. downright; sheer: plain folly. 5. free from ambiguity or evasion; candid, outspoken….