Literature

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) The English writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916), who is better known under his pen name Saki, was a master of the short comic story and, in some ways, a missing link between Oscar Wilde and P. G. Wodehouse. What’s more, Saki was that rare writer who could write humorously,

September 19, 2023, 3:05pm Well, group text, the Bad Art Friend saga has finally come to an end. In case you forgot about the biggest literary story of 2021 (bless you, really), it all stemmed from Robert Kolker’s New York Times feature “Who Is the Bad Art Friend?”, which treated us all to the story of

Writing as a foreigner in one’s own language doesn’t mean, for Antoine Volodine, writing stories of “the other” facing off against the familiarity of the homeland, the security of the native or the citizen, whatever you want to call the insider position whence “identities” are defined and bestowed (Antoine Volodine is a pseudonym). According to

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) In 1890, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray was serialised in Lippincott’s Magazine. The following year, when the novel was published in book form, Wilde added a famous ‘Preface’ which consisted of a series of statements and axioms about literature and art. Perhaps the most famous of these

September 18, 2023, 11:29am They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God. Now considered one of the greatest novels

Once more, I’ve retraced my steps. I’ve made my way back to the familiar, and being forewarned, I do so with the confidence of the adept. And yet, no sooner have I begun my task than I question myself in a way I never did when I set forth on my several prior journeys down

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The City’ is a short story about revenge best served cold. Written by the American author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), the story was included in his 1952 collection The Illustrated Man. The story is about a city which has waited twenty thousand years for man to return so that the

When America Ferrera launched into that monologue toward the end of the Barbie movie—telling it how it is for women everywhere—she stole the show. An iconic speech, delivered by a woman on the cusp of 40, Ferrera’s character, Gloria, is one of a new breed of midlife heroines emerging in film. These are women packing

Not long after I moved to Los Angeles from the East Coast to pursue a career in movies, my wife Pam and I moved into a Hollywood neighborhood where it seemed everything in and out of sight ultimately would get stolen, and most everything did, including Pam’s car, which was parked directly in front of

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘There Was a Man, There Was a Woman’ is a short story from Sandra Cisneros’ 1991 collection Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. In this brief vignette or piece of flash fiction, a narrator describes two people, a man and a woman, who lead similar lives despite never having

TODAY: In 1880, English poet Alfred Noyes is born.     “I beg you to see what it is that we must save, and not to let the bigots and misogynists take it away from us again.” Watch Ursula K. Le Guin read about her illegal abortion as a college senior in 1950. | Lit Hub Biography

TODAY: In 1938, Thomas Wolfe dies at 37.    Terrell Tannen recalls trying to adapt Jim Harrison’s novels for Hollywood—and making a friend in Harrison along the way. | Lit Hub Memoir “I can’t approve of this movie, and by all rights, I could hate it. But I am enthralled.” Annie Berke revisits The Notebook

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘A Hymn to the Evening’ is a poem written by Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-84) in praise of the evening. Wheatley was the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in 1773 when she was probably still in her early

September 15, 2023, 10:15am Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. The ten titles on the longlist were selected from a pool of 496 books submitted for consideration by their publishers; this year’s judges for Fiction are Steph Cha, Calvin Crosby, Silas House, Mat Johnson (Chair),

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) William Wordsworth’s classic poem beginning ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ is famous for its opening line, but it is a poem full of resonant and memorable lines. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most illustrative and important quotations from Wordsworth’s ‘daffodils poem’, as it is

September 13, 2023, 2:33pm Corral the performing gators, rouse the lemon grove vampires, and release the wolf girls, because Karen Russell—the Pulitzer Prize finalist, MacArthur fellow, and multi award-winning Floridian fantasist—has written a new novel (her first since 2011’s Swamplandia!) and it sounds, well, incredible: Karen Russell’s THE ANTIDOTE opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) ‘The Black Snake’ is a 1979 poem by the American poet Mary Oliver (1935-2019), who, at the time of her death, was reckoned to be the bestselling poet in the United States. Oliver’s poetry is in the Romantic tradition and often takes its cue from observations of the natural

September 13, 2023, 3:15pm Today, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The ten titles were originally published in seven different languages—Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish—and were selected from a pool of 154 books submitted for consideration by their publishers. This year’s judges