The Faith of Halldór Laxness

Salka Valka, the first novel written after the Nobel Prize winner’s apparent loss of faith, betrays an ongoing religious aesthetic.

Jack Hanson

Jerzy Skolimowski’s Wild and Kinetic EO

If Au Hasard Balthazar is austere and precise, EO is excessive and elusive.

J. Hoberman

Rachel Aviv’s Report From Psychiatry’s Gray Zones

Her debut, Strangers to Ourselves, asks: Who shapes the story of someone’s illness?

Kevin Lozano

Emmanuel Carrère’s Brilliant Narcissism

His latest “nonfiction novel,” Yoga, explores his favorite theme: himself. 

Max Norman

The Most Dangerous Architect in America

Gregory Ain wanted to create social housing in Los Angeles. Dogged by the FBI, his hope for more egalitarian architecture never came to be.

Kate Wolf

Michael Cimino, a Chaotic Auteur

A new biography examines the work of a flamboyant director who placed himself at the center of his own private Hollywood cosmology.

Adam Nayman

Beyond Zombie Figuration

The craze for figurative painting might be at an impasse. These three painters stand above the pack, making work that challenges the very idea of the form.

Barry Schwabsky

The Mythology of George Balanchine

A conversation with Jennifer Homans about the ballet master’s literary influences, his complicated legacy, and the metaphysical side of dance.

Dilara O’Neil

The Radical Internationalism of the Spanish Civil War

A new graphic history charts the exploits of those Americans serving in the war’s International Brigades.

Bill Fletcher Jr.

Congo: Curriculum Vitae (excerpt)

Alain Mabanckou