V1agra C1alis
1I didn’t get it at first. I thought she was kidding. Viagra, Cialis, your woman will want to keep going all night. I won’t say I didn’t blush. But… More
Photocopies of Photocopies: On Bao Ninh
Bao Ninh, now living in Hanoi, became a novelist in the second half of his life. Until the age of forty, he served in the North Vietnamese Army, fighting… More
A Reservoir of Freedom
We have come to the end of one of the most illustrious, unruly, and eventful congresses in the history of International PEN. Have so many brilliant writers ever gathered… More
On Writing
A young student once wrote to the French novelist André Gide to ask him whether he should try to become a writer. “Only if you have to,” answered Gide,… More
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
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
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
Resettlement
Some angels / seemed to teeter on the wooden fence. / Were we all they knew? More
The Disappearing Bride and Other Stories
The streets are murky. You could have picked a different bride. Yet here we are, burdened with luggage, limping, and I am insisting that I need a notebook, a… 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
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