The Maias

One dreary December day of heavy rain, Afonso da Maia was sitting in his study reading, when the door flew open; he looked up and saw Pedro standing before… More

Conversations in Tusculum

Tusculum, a town in the Alban Hills, fifteen miles southeast of Rome, is home to many country villas owned by wealthy and politically well-connected Romans. More

The Clean House

CHARACTERSLane: A doctor, a woman in her early fifties. She wears white.Matilde: Lane’s cleaning lady, a woman in her late twenties. She wears black. She is Brazilian. She has… More

Tomaz Salamun: Poems

From Otrok in Jelen and Morje.Translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry and Tomaž Šalamun.FrontierBut you know, suffering also decaysand remains dust.The frontier is my living body.When a peasant… More

How She Penetrates

According to family lore, there was a great bonfire in which all of Jane’s possessions perished. Her journals, her clothes, her scrapbooks, her books, her typewriter, her school papers,… More

The First Novel

The First NovelBe my heroine, whispers the Novel to the Novelist.Love me and die for me! orders the Novel to the Novelist.Poetry, please lend me your blade, cries the… More

The Last Iraq

The Last IraqEach night I sit Iraq on my tableand pinch his earsuntil his eyes fill up with tearsof joy.Another cold winter, crisscrossed by jet fighters.Soldiers sit on a… More

36 Views

“Only a part of what is perceived comes through the senses from the object; the remainder always comes from within.”—Matthew Luckiesh, Visual Illusions CAST OF CHARACTERSDarius Wheeler, a dealer… More

Rereading Saul Bellow

[2000] The Adventures of Augie March (1953) The transformation of the novelist who published Dangling Man in 1944 and The Victim in 1947 into the novelist who published The Adventures… More