Book Reviews
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July 9, 2018 |
Photo of Tracy K. Smith by Rachel Eliza Griffiths Reading Wade in the Water (Graywolf Press, 2018), US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s fourth book, is an experience unlike any I’ve had before... -
June 6, 2018 |
America has long been at the crossroads of accepting diversity and empire-building. American interactions with diverse peoples have often been less than ideal. During confusing, often unjust, dealing... -
May 16, 2018 |
Photo: Zakaria Wakram Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language. – Meister Eckhart We live in unexemplary times, maddened by fear, murde... -
March 28, 2018 |
Photo of Lea Goldberg and drawing by Goldberg from She’erit HaChayim (1971) / Courtesy of the Gnazim Institute, Hebrew Writers’ Association Lea Goldberg (1911–1970), one of the most importan... -
February 20, 2018 |
Major Jackson / Photo courtesy of the author. Kehinde Wiley’s Morpheus (2008) appears on the cover of Roll Deep Major Jackson’s latest book of poetry, Roll Deep (Norton, 20... -
January 31, 2018 |
Leïla Slimani / Photo courtesy of FrenchCulture.org I have barely read any critical pieces on Leïla Slimani’s novel Chanson douce (Gallimard, 2016), winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt i... -
January 18, 2018 |
Naomi Klein / Photo by Kourosh Keshiri “It is easier,” Mark Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, “to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capital... -
January 17, 2018 |
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and our aim is to reach the unattainable, the unknown through the “viewless wings of Poesy.” “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” thinks the... -
January 10, 2018 |
Misuzu Kaneko (1903–1930) is a poet who holds a special place in the hearts of many Japanese as a voice of compassion in a difficult time for the country. The recently published Are You an Echo? T... -
December 20, 2017 |
Jonas Zdanys is a master lyricist. The bilingual poet (English and Lithuanian) displays his versatile ability with a variety of poetic styles in several recent collections. In Red Stones (201... -
October 9, 2017 |
Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), a poetry finalist for the 2017 National Book Awards, contends with the U.S. federal terminologies in relationship to Indigenous people and rein... -
September 18, 2017 |
A still from Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou The word CAMERA never appears in my scripts. I don’t prepare. I never know what I’m going to do in the next scene.—Luis Buñuel Simply... -
June 28, 2017 |
Mathias Énard / Photo © Marc Melki / Courtesy of New Directions The quickest way to turn someone off from the possibility of reading Mathias Énard’s astounding novel, Compass (New Directions... -
June 7, 2017 |
Biljana Obradović captures the immigrant’s distrust of the permanent in Incognito. Serbian American poet Biljana Obradović has lived in Yugoslavia, Greece, India, and in the US, whe... -
May 31, 2017 |
Tanure Ojaide / Urhobo Historical Society Tanure Ojaide seamlessly blends the personal with the political in this volume of verse to paint a compelling portrait of a Nigeria always in transition.... -
May 24, 2017 |
Poet John Kinsella inhabits and lends voice to the landscapes around him in Firebreaks. In Firebreaks (Norton, 2016), the title John Kinsella chooses for his twenty-third... -
May 17, 2017 |
Samrat Upadhyay’s newest story collection offers political engagement shot through with humanism and hints of spirituality. Political unrest looms as large in Samrat Upadhyay’s newest collec... -
May 5, 2017 |
Cardoso’s magnum opus offers a glimpse into the hidden world of postwar Brazil’s upper echelon. Editor’s note: When a publisher brings forth a much-needed translation of a classic... -
May 3, 2017 |
Laurens explores the seductive danger of a digital fountain of youth in this novel about women’s identity and agency in midlife. Technology and gender standards collide in Camille Laurens’s... -
April 19, 2017 |
Hungarian-born author Magda Szabó lays bare the dangers of settling too deeply into routine as a daughter helps her mother navigate life as a widow. New York Review Books is almost... -
April 6, 2017 |
Anecdotes often shed light on the way we see art and literature. A few weeks ago, I was skimming through Rachel Corbett’s book in the Paris metro when a young man came toward me and asked me whether t... -
March 20, 2017 |
It is not easy to be a poet; certainly not when you live away from the language in which you feel, see, and analyze everything around you. Emigration isn’t easy for poets, who live to seize the world... -
March 8, 2017 |
The author of Between Day and Night (TCU Press, 2013), poet Miguel González-Gerth, now ninety, has written in traditional forms and in free verse. While his strong formal poems never fall hea... -
February 15, 2017 |
Doron Rabinovici. Photograph © Marko Lipuš Doron Rabinovici’s novel Elsewhere, in German titled Andernorts, was shortlisted for the prestigious German Book Prize 2010, but it is onc... -
November 16, 2016 |
“When I read a necessary poem (which is different from just a good poem), it shakes me, even changes me a little, and deepens my understanding of the world,” Zeina Hashem Beck, Lebanese poet, said in...
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Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200 CE), “How to Read” 論語集注, in Sishu jizhu 四書集注, Sibu beiyao edition (National University of Singapore)
In A Theory of the...
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Genaro Kỳ Lý Smith was born in Nha Trang, Vietnam, and raised in California. His first book, The Land Baron’s Sun: The Story of Lý...
