The Real Worlds
Many of us who come from the Caribbean are astounded when people speak of the “implausibility” of magical realism. For in our worldview, as in our much-loved Gabriel García… More
Performance Art
Here’s a theory—or elements of a theory—of the comic. In this theory, the comic contains or embraces six elements. The first is the quality of deadpan, of impassivity; for… More
Life and Deaths
ALAN ADELSON: In Regions of the Great Heresy, Jerzy Ficowski gives us this eloquent description of Bruno Schulz’s last days:The foreboding that had haunted Schulz his entire life was… More
Toward Total Recall
Was it in the summer? It probably was . . . when you thought you had enough time on your hands to fill them with a book, when an unappointed… More
A Mighty Heart
In 1933 John Steinbeck was so poor he couldn't afford a dog. The literary critic Lewis Gannett uncovered this fact in Steinbeck’s correspondence with his agents during the time… More
On Solid Ground
When I first met the wide smile of James Baldwin face to face, I just burst into tears. In less than a heartbeat, he opened his arms as wide… More
Parce Que C’était Lui
The little phrase I’m about to read comes from a famous passage in Sodom and Gomorrah when Marcel the narrator is suddenly reminded of his grandmother. He had stayed… More
Blues to Be there
I have a prepared statement, and then there’ll be an improvisation. I hate to do a fully prepared speech in New York, because you never know. This is called… More
Unwearied Blues
Langston Hughes wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” when he was eighteen years of age and published it when he was nineteen—in 1921, in W. E. B. Du Bois’s… More
The Day I Finally Met Baldwin
The 1960s opened propitiously for me, and for my country, Nigeria. In 1960 Nigeria freed itself, at last, from British colonial rule. I published my second novel, and proved… More
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