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Don DeLillo: Strange and Dangerous Times
DeLillo: The writer’s role is to sit in a room and write. We can leave it at that. Or we can add that writers have always felt a natural… More
Lila Azam Zanganeh & Atiq Rahimi: Mother Tongue
LILA AZAM ZANGANEH: Atiq, you had written three novels in Persian, and then you switched from Persian to French for your most recent novel, The Patience Stone, and it… More
Jonathan Lethem & Patti Smith
I would go to rummage sales or church bazaars and pick out books for pennies, for a quarter. I got a first edition Dickens with a green velvet cover… More
Before the Next World Cup
It was Amichai’s idea, those wishes.After Emanuel Petit scored the third goal and it was already clear that France would take the Cup, and there was a faint sense… More
PEN Remembers Lucy Kavaler
PEN American Center mourns the loss of Lucy Kavaler, one of our most active, inspiring, and beloved Freedom to Write advocates. Lucy passed away October 30, 2010 in New… More
Natalia Sannikova: Free Verses to My Son
Free Verses to My SonWhen you’ve read as many books, poems, and blogsas I’ve already read,you’ll find out just how little I get literature.For example, Blok—he wrote about Woman and… More
The Pretty Grown-Together Children
Let me tell it, I said.No, you’re a liar and a drunk, I said. Or she said.Our voices could be like one. I could feel hers in my bones,… More
Black Mirrors
But when the years turn into a long train tired of its own whistles and exhausted by the stations, you try something else similar to forgetfulness. More
Don’t Snatch Àbèní
Don’t Snatch ÀbèníI cannot handle farming,I am lazy,I cannot hunt small games,My wife has matured,I do not have money!The owner of twenty slaves must not take her,The master of… More
Admiration
The girl listens in amazement as the cryptic novelist reads a chapter of his latest novel. When he finishes, everyone applauds. She manages to maneuver herself into a strategic… More