Literature

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) At the end of the nineteenth century, a series of excavations of a rubbish-dump in the city of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt led to the inadvertent discovery of some papyrus scrolls. They contained, among other things, quite a lot of the poetry by the lyric poet Sappho. We are still

TODAY: Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian writer and translator best known for his novel The Blind Owl, is born.   Also on Lit Hub: New poetry by José Olivarez • Essential books about World War II women • Read from Alejandro Zambra’s newly translated novel, The Private Lives of Trees (tr. Megan McDowell) 

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Lottery’ is a famous 1948 short story of the American writer Shirley Jackson. The story focuses on a village where an annual lottery is drawn, with the fate of the person who draws the ‘winning’ slip only revealed at the end of the story. Jackson’s story is about

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Nineteen Eighty-Four is the best-known work of George Orwell (1903-50), who, as well as writing two of the most enduring novels of the 1940s, was also one of the greatest essayists of the first half of the twentieth century. Orwell’s dystopian vision of a future world in which ‘thoughtcrime’

The following is from Richard Bausch’s Playhouse. Bausch is the author of twelve novels and nine volumes of short stories. He is a recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, the Literature Award from the

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Ray Bradbury’s classic short story ‘The Veldt’ (1952) is about a nursery in an automated home in which a simulation of the African veldt is conjured by some children, who have only to ‘think’ the landscape into being for it to appear around them. The lions which appear in

February 15, 2023, 11:14am This morning, a group of almost 200 journalists and writers released an open letter addressed to the New York Times, expressing their “serious concerns about editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people” and criticizing how the paper has “follow[ed] the lead of far-right hate groups in presenting gender

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘In the Desert’ is a poem by the American author Stephen Crane (1871-1900), published in his 1895 collection, The Black Riders and Other Lines. Crane is perhaps best-known for his American Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, and this is his best-remembered poem. ‘In the Desert’ is

The following is a story from Mai Nardone’s debut collection Welcome Me to the Kingdom. Nardone is a Thai and American writer whose work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. He lives in Bangkok. PEA & NAM (1974)  Pea jams a match under the burner. (In English: “Ignite!”) He

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Poetry Is Not a Luxury’ is a 1977 essay by the American poet Audre Lorde (1934-92). In the essay, Lorde argues that poetry is a necessity for women, as it puts them in touch with old feelings and ways of knowing which they have long forgotten. Poetry also offers

February 14, 2023, 11:21am Here’s something fun I learned today: much like poor unfortunate Tessie Hutchinson at the close of “The Lottery“—the (second?) most famous short story in New Yorker history—all Shirley Jackson Award finalists get stoned. Now, when I say “stoned,” I’m not talking about blazing up a fat, celebratory doobie of sweet Mary

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘A Rose for Emily’ is a classic American short story with an unsettling denouement on the final page. In just a dozen pages, William Faulkner’s narrator conjures an ageing matriarch of the Old South, telling us about her life, her love, and her death. The setting of ‘A Rose

February 14, 2023, 4:55am Clear your schedules! This week, we see the publication of new books by Zadie Smith, Greta Thunberg, Alejandro Zambra, and more! * Zadie Smith, The Wife of Willesden(Penguin) “A triumph of dramatic creativity … a total delight. Highly recommended.”–Library Journal Greta Thunberg, The Climate Book(Penguin Press) “Thunberg gathers essays from scientists,

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘Désirée’s Baby’, originally known by the longer title ‘The Father of Désirée’s Baby’, is an 1893 short story by the American writer Kate Chopin (1850-94). It is among Chopin’s most widely studied stories, partly because it deals with the subject of race as well as gender. The story tells

February 13, 2023, 2:52pm Last week an earthquake struck Turkey and Syria. As an agent and translator who works with international writers and publishers, I began to hear from many of my colleagues, so I decided to write a message to them.  When I started writing the letter below, the earthquake’s death toll was at

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is an 1892 short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman. A powerful study of mental illness and the inhuman treatments administered in its name, the story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed woman who is incarcerated in the nursery room of

Shallow, fake, showy, and performative—these are a few of the adjectives used to describe BookTok, the corner of TikTok where young women share and discuss books on camera, by drive-by tourists to a culture they don’t understand. I’m no BookTok tourist. I’ve lived here for nine months. As a chronically online millennial, I’ve become a