Literature
Browse our essays and reviews on literature.
The Dystopia Next Door
A new generation of young Polish novelists has turned to dystopia to express Poland’s cultural and economic contradictions.
Summer Poetry Reading
New poetry from Chen Chen, Jennifer Kronovet, Jennifer Scappettone, Alli Warren, and Andrew Wessels.
How the Cinder Bears the Seed
Susan Stewart's new poetry collection questions the power and potential of her own art.
Radicalism Begins in the Body
Junot Díaz interviews science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany about what it means to be an aging sex radical and why he wrote the essay “Ash Wednesday.”
Riding La Bestia
Following the 2014 immigration crisis, Valeria Luiselli began volunteering at a New York City immigration court. This is what she heard.
The Monstrosity of Sor Juana
Two new translations resurrect Mexico’s most enigmatic and paradoxical Baroque poet.
Writing at the End of the World
Celebrated dystopian novelist Paul Kingsnorth talks surviving the collapse of civilization as we know it.
Pessoptimism of the Will
Emile Habiby’s absurd fictions offer a map for surviving impossible political conditions.
The Bartleby Strategy
Our democracy may depend on government workers, and indeed all of us, saying “I would prefer not to.”
Hamilton’s Choice
Hamilton presents us with the Choice of Hercules retold as a choice between two kinds of political life.
Poems for Political Disaster
Marking a moment of rupture, summoning the collective strength found in the language of poetry.
The Lost Neruda Poems
As questions about Neruda’s death linger, a lost archive of unpublished poems, hidden amongst his notebooks, has surfaced.
Global Dystopias, Critical Dystopias: A Podcast with Junot Díaz
Our critique of the present is essential to producing a future.
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