Exile on Any Street
Irina Reyn and Aleksandar Hemon in conversation,February 2010
Are American readers insular, as the secretary of the Swedish Academy famously quipped? If so, why has immigrant fiction taken such a pivotal role in American letters? Novelist Irina Reyn hashes it out with lauded Bosnian author Aleksandar Hemon.
FEATURES
Writers, Plain and Simple
by Claire MessudWomen make up 80% of the fiction reading audience in this country. So why, guest fiction editor Claire Messud asks, are women authors so frequently left off the best-of lists, and left out of prestigious book prizes?
INTERVIEWS
On the Emancipation of Women
Katherine Dykstra interviews Sheryl WuDunnJust as the 1800s were ripe for the abolition of slavery, this century will bring forces to bear on freeing women from violence, slavery, and oppression, argues the co-author of Half the Sky.
FICTION
Quality Street
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, guest-edited by Claire MessudSochienne called her a fat bourgeois, a dilettante dancing while Nigeria was failing, as though she could somehow solve the country’s problems by depriving herself of a manicure.
ART
At the Lake
by Amy BennettThe paintings are glimpses of a scene or fragments of a narrative. Similar to a memory, they are fictional constructions of significant moments.
FROM THE BLOG
Rec Room: David Xia: The Smartest Guys in the Room
8 February 2010 - When you’re hungry for tales of hubris, greed, and corporate drama…
Robert Reich: Who’s Killing Financial Reform?
8 February 2010 - Congress isn’t doing a thing about Wall Street because it’s in the pocket of Wall Street.
Rec Room: Jake Whitney: “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”
5 February 2010 - Penned in 1964 with the ‘50s political climate in mind, Hofstadter’s influential essay has an uncanny relevance today.
Norman Solomon: Don’t Call It a “Defense” Budget
5 February 2010 - For the United States, an epitaph on the horizon says: “We had to destroy our country in order to defend it.”
Rec Room: Francis Reynolds: “Writers, Plain and Simple”
4 February 2010 - Gender imbalances in publications and prize lists make it no easier for female authors to be recognized for their work and to make a living as writers.