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Writers

A black and white Bruegel engraving portraying several figures inside a chaotic room filled with...

"The Alchemist" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1926. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain.

The Alchemy of Literature: A Lecture on Pain

By Guadalupe Nettel

In this year’s Lancaster International Fiction Lecture from Litfest’s “Autumn Weekend,” award-winning writer Guadalupe Nettel considers how writers turn the pain of human experience—physical, emotional, psychological—into moments of literary…

Translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey

A clocktower with a bright blue clock featuring the signs of the zodiac and a roman numeral for...

Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash

Me and the Stars

Still, I have reservations about signing with a Pisces agent.

The Story of a Notebook

By Sergio Chejfec

One is drawn toward handwritten manuscripts because, unlike more mediated forms of writing (whether produced by typewriters, word processors, or automatic transcription tools), they alone retain the signs of hesitation.

Translated from Spanish by Jeffrey Lawrence

Transcending the Human Viewpoint

By Madeleine Feeny

I allowed myself to be very playful and unafraid, and to try everything.

“Reality (Unfortunately?) Varies”: A Conversation Between Galina Rymbu and Ilya Danishevsky

By Galina Rymbu

“It seems to me—perhaps naively—that poetry has the ability to examine things in a maximally authentic way.”

Translated from Russian by Anne O. Fisher & Helena Kernan

Portraits of writers Daniel Mendelsohn and Émmanuel Carrère.

Daniel Mendelsohn (left), photo © Matt Mendelsohn, and Émmanuel Carrère, photo by Raphael Labbé, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

“We Are Always Present in What We Write”: An Exchange between Emmanuel Carrère and Daniel Mendelsohn

By Raphaëlle Leyris

You are never the same 'you' from book to book.

Translated by Émanuel Grenier-Benoit

A portrait of Chinese literary critic and science fiction writer, Tang Fei.

Photo courtesy of Tang Fei.

Sexism and Science Fiction: An Interview with Tang Fei

By Nicky Harman & Natascha Bruce

When a female writer has been objectified and put on such a pedestal, how is she supposed to get down again?

Translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman

A panel from Lebanese comic artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj's A Subjective History of Lebanon.

A panel from Mazen Kerbaj's "A Subjective History of Lebanon."

“This Catastrophe That Is Called Lebanon”: A Conversation with Mazen Kerbaj

By Words Without Borders

It's shocking to reach a place where you cannot imagine you could be still shocked by something in this country, and then you are proven wrong.

Learning Late Letters

By Nguyễn Hoàng Quyên

The dead don't let us go, I say to my friend Sirius, putting my father's letters in a drawer.

Translated from Vietnamese by the author

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Özdamar’s Tongue

By Mariana Oliver

Özdamar knew that arriving in a country with no return ticket meant voluntarily surrendering to an indeterminate foreignness.

Translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches

Brooklyn Trilogy

By Eduardo Lago

Writers, true stories, wrong numbers, and chance: Eduardo Lago spins an homage to the late Paul Auster.

Translated from Spanish by Ernesto Mestre-Reed

Local Affairs

By Alexander Cuadros

Alexander Cuadros reports from Brazil's Festa Literária Internacional de Parati (FLIP).

An Interview with Hisham Matar

Nouri Gana talks to Hisham Matar about poetry, beards, and his novel In the Country of Men.