Fiction

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

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  The Burden and the Beauty of Loneliness: An Interview with Leslie Parry

  Leslie Parry on her debut novel: "How do you take what makes you different … and turn it into the strongest, most necessary part of you?"

  Zach MannMay 9, 2015

  • Fiction

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  Don’t Call “The Sellout” a Ghetto Pastoral

  Paul Beatty, incisive chronicler and prodigal son of LA, talks about his new novel, 'The Sellout.'

  Evelyn McDonnellMay 7, 2015

  • Fiction

• Seeing Like an Exile

  'Orhan’s Inheritance' traces the history of two families thrust into chaos by the massacre and violent expulsion of over one million Armenians from Ottoman Turkey.

  Lisa Sanchez PowersMay 6, 2015

  • Fiction

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  Creatures of Ambiguity

  Translator Jeffery Zuckerman interviews internationally acclaimed Mauritian writer Ananda Devi about her novel "Eve Out of Her Ruins"; the first section to appear in English was recently published on LARB channel The Offing.

  Jeffrey ZuckermanMay 5, 2015

  • Fiction

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  Thomas Cromwell, a Man for All Treasons

  That a public man such as Thomas Cromwell can be understood so differently by writers acting in good faith is due to a number of factors: his distance from us in time, our incomplete record of his correspondence, the nature of politics, and the nature of observation.

  Josh EmmonsMay 1, 2015

  • Fiction

  • History

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  The Marriage Plot: Three Versions of “Wolf Hall”

  The story of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn has been told and retold from hundreds of angles. So why did Hilary Mantel’s version catch fire?

  Laurie WinerApr 30, 2015

  • Fiction

  • Television

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  Forty Years After the Fall — Vietnam War Lit in 2015

  A reflection on war literature 40 years after the Fall of Saigon.

  Matt GallagherApr 30, 2015

  • Fiction

• A Short Story Can Ruin Your Life

  If "There's Something I Want You to Do" contains a lesson, it is that inventing one's own decalogue — one's own set of rules, one's own morality — carries quite a risk, not of damnation, but of existential exhaustion.

  Susannah ShiveApr 25, 2015

  • Fiction

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  Reality Hunger: The Six Books of Karl Ove Knausgaard, Part III

  Part 3 of a 3-Part Series

  William PierceApr 24, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Fiction

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  Reality Hunger: The Six Books of Karl Ove Knausgaard, Part II

  Part 2 of a 3-Part Series

  William PierceApr 23, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Fiction

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  Reality Hunger: The Six Books of Karl Ove Knausgaard, Part I

  Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

  William PierceApr 22, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Fiction

• A Wishful Fear and a Fearful Wish

  Alex Norcia discusses Stephen Marche's new novel in the context of the second gilded age.

  Alex NorciaApr 20, 2015

  • Fiction

  • Noir