Searching for Traces Searching for Traces
There was little enthusiasm for revisiting the camps in Communist Hungary. Author Imre Kertész refracts that reluctance in fictional form.
May 22, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Ruth Scurr
Dead Letters Dead Letters
Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig saw himself as a Freud of fiction--a fellow spelunker in the caverns of the heart.
May 22, 2008 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
The Age of the Wooden Spoon The Age of the Wooden Spoon
The radical subjectivity and reckless politics of Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun find new expression in recent English translations and editions.
May 8, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Lytal
The Counter-Family The Counter-Family
British author Jonathan Coe departs from grand social transformations and turns to the domestic sphere in The Rain Before It Falls.
May 8, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Chris Lehmann
Man Out of Time Man Out of Time
In Hari Kunzru's captivating new novel My Revolutions, a former anti-Vietnam terrorist is dredged up after half a lifetime underground.
Apr 9, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Mark Sorkin
Where Now? Let’s Go! Where Now? Let’s Go!
The nonsensical funhouse of Donald Barthelme's fiction celebrates the cosmic joke of life and the pathos of grappling with it.
Apr 9, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Joanna Scott
Seems Like Old Times Seems Like Old Times
This week's episode: Dieter Countryman reminisces about the good ol' days of selling the first Gulf War; Connie Waller gets his freak on in Vegas.
Apr 7, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Gary Phillips
Internal Combustion Internal Combustion
Could Russell Banks be retooling himself as a fabulist?
Mar 27, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Melissa Holbrook Pierson
A Garden of Monsters A Garden of Monsters
The imaginary fascists in Roberto Bolaño's ironic encyclopedia Nazi Literature in the Americas bear a complex relationship to reality.
Mar 13, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Carmen Boullosa
Foes Foes
J.M. Coetzee, now out with a new novel and a collection of essays, reminds us what a master he is at turning life into narrative.
Feb 7, 2008 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz