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That same summer, McCullers began a whirlwind tour of conferences and residencies, where she charmed some of the most famous names in literature and alienated many others. At Bread Loaf, the summer writers’ conference at Middlebury College, she was an “enfant terrible,” monopolizing the conversation and drinking all of Wallace Stegner’s bourbon—when she wasn’t drinking […]
The Arrested Development of Carson McCullers Read More »
It is almost two hundred years since the death of Lord Byron. He succumbed to a fever on April 19, 1824, in the town of Missolonghi, on the west coast of Greece, at the age of thirty-six. As was far from unusual at the time, medical professionals did much to hasten the end that they
Lord Byron Was More Than Just Byronic Read More »
This week’s story, “The Spit of Him,” is about a boy named Kevin who ventures out to a neighboring village and, in the process, may or may not discover a dark secret about his father. How did the idea for this story come to you? I began working on this story one night in my
Thomas Korsgaard on What Children Know Read More »
Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen Sign up to receive our weekly Books & Fiction newsletter. Photograph by Ladan Osman Donika Kelly joins Kevin Young to read “One Hundred White-Sided Dolphins on a Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver, and her own poem “Sixteen Center.” Kelly is the author of
Donika Kelly Reads Mary Oliver Read More »
When she died at a hundred and one in January of 2019, Diana Athill had publicly chronicled both ends of her long life in a series of nine memoirs. The first of these, “Instead of a Letter,” was published in 1963 and recently rereleased in the U.S. as part of the NYRB Classics series; it
A Memoirist Who Told Everything and Repented Nothing Read More »
Which were the pivotal years of the past century? An argument could be made for 1929, when the worldwide financial crash ushered in the crisis that led to the rise of Nazism (and of the New Deal) and, eventually, to the Second World War; for 1945, when the United States emerged from that war uniquely
Did the Year 2020 Change Us Forever? Read More »
Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen Sign up to receive our weekly Books & Fiction newsletter. Jamil Jan Kochai reads his story “On the Night of the Khatam” from the February 26, 2024, issue of the magazine. Kochai is the author of the novel “99 Nights in Logar” and
Jamil Jan Kochai Reads “On the Night of the Khatam” Read More »
What happened in the apple orchard that so frightened the children? Something had been half-glimpsed or heard, something in the night. Rumors sparked but didn’t catch. The children kept their distance, and stayed close to the nearby school. Years passed. The school was shut down. The buildings stood. The orchard grew wild. And, one day,
In Tommy Orange’s Latest, a Family Tree Grows from Severed Roots Read More »
Your story “On the Night of the Khatam” takes place primarily at a gathering of Afghan refugees who are living in Sacramento, and who meet to talk, gossip, eat, and pray together, although their histories, political views, and affiliations in Afghanistan are all quite different. Did gatherings like this take place when you were growing
Jamil Jan Kochai on a Shared Cultural Language Read More »
At Christmas, 1939, a few months into the new World War, London bookshops were very busy. The war was bringing in a public eager to learn about weapons, planes, and the nature of the country that was once again the enemy. Confidence was high and curiosity, as much as fear, prevailed. Among recent titles, “I
From Homer to Gaza, the History of Books in Wartime Read More »
