Dead Money: Pfizer, Cisco, and Other Value Traps
No one knew the rules. No one knew they’d have to cut off their tongues to keep those little machines of fire going, incinerating the moons and white… More
Wish You Were Here: The Perks of Being Banned
The humanities are in crisis, they say, and I am telling you this because the banning of books is another kind of restricted access: If you reduce the amount… More
On Banning Barbara Comyns’s Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
I believe that one of the surest ways to enrage those inclined to censorship is to present a fictional world that requires the reader to provide the fictional world's… More
Spotlight on the 2013 PEN Literary Award Winners
The winners of the 2013 PEN Literary Awards were announced last month, bringing greater recognition to a wide range of worthy books and authors. Since the announcement, we've encountered… More
On Translating Antonio Tabbuchi
The book is a pastiche of literary, philosophical, and pop-culture references, all made by a dying man who is at times lucid, at times hallucinating. It’s a thrilling book… More
On Translating Li Shangyin
To read Li Shangyin’s poetry is to be beautifully disoriented. It is to encounter a unique lyricism comprised of layer upon layer of mythological, historical, and symbolist imagery all… More
Five Poems from Derangements of My Contemporaries
For no reason: bitter envy, lingering resentment towards others. / Drunkenly calling on ghosts, spirits. / Grieving sons reciting song lyrics. / Dressing in deep mourning at a cock… More
On Translating Eka Kurniawan
Beauty is a Wound is pointed about the havoc appetite has wreaked upon a place and people of idyllic beauty...Kurniawan implicates his readers, who can’t help but take pleasure… More
The PEN Ten with Julia Fierro
John F. Kennedy said, "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names." I’d revise that message: "Forgive your enemy, but never forget their story." More