Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. Her oral history, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, appeared this spring in the US. Translated by Bela Shayevich, the book is a compelling…
I am glad to have read The Ink Dark Moon, Jane Hirshfeld’s translations, with the aid of Mariko Aratani, of the Heian Court’s poets—Izumi Shikibu and Ono No Komachi. Several of Kerouac’s writing maxims came to…
“The calling that I profess,” replied DQ, “does not permit me to do otherwise. An easy pace, pleasure, and repose — those things were invented for delicate courtiers; but toil, anxiety, and arms — they…
Dear Bella Levenshteyn Let Emily Dickinson reassure you– Much Madness is divinest Sense — To a discerning Eye — Much Sense — the starkest Madness — ‘Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail —…
From a young woman’s fan letter to Marcel Proust: And after three years of uninterrupted reading, my conclusion is this: I understand nothing, but absolutely nothing. Dear Marcel Proust, don’t be a poseur, descend for…
How I long for supernatural powers! said the novice mournfully to the holy one. I see a dead child and I long to say, Arise! I see a sick man I long to say, Be…
My friend is assiduous in learning Russian Her son and daughter-in-law reside in Saint Petersburg She’s headed there in May She tells me she needs to get a book of Pushkin Memorize some of his…
Dear Rebecca, Sarah, Matthew and Patrick, Joanie French and I took the Amtrak train to Texas in the summer of 2005 for a family wedding. Along the way and back, I read the Library of…
for Claire At the end of the road they will ask me –Have you lived? Have you loved? And not saying a word I Will open my heart full of names. –Pedro Casaldáliga, Brazil
“A whole world collapsed before my very eyes, but you, my favorite author, are bringing it to life again.” –Miriam, in I.B. Singer’s Meshugah