Monthly Archives: May 2013
“On the Death of the Author,” by Álvaro Enrigue
Some stories are, seemingly, impossible to tell. It must be at least ten years since I took a trip through California, and since then I’ve been trying to write, without the least success, the story of a particular grand finale: it’s the story of Ishi, a Yahi Indian who was discovered in his aboriginal condition […]
“Summer Voices,” by John Banville
—Are you coming or are you just going to stand there all day? He turned. The girl stood between the two ancient bicycles, a saddle held in each of her small hands. —I’m coming, he grunted. They mounted and rode slowly down to the gate, where he halted while the girl swung carelessly out into […]
“Milano–Roma–Palermo,” by Tim Parks
I’m scarcely sure what nationality I really am these days. All I know is that for the past thirty years I’ve lived and worked in northern Italy, and like most of the people around me I know little of the South, though the South is always present to us as an idea—a bad one, for […]
“Before Arbour Hill,” by Anakana Schofield
Before Arbour Hill there were three of them. There was his mother. A semi-detached, in an unremarkable cul-de-sac, housed them, with souvenirs from a holiday in Portugal on the mantlepiece. Biscuits in the tin, sheets in the hot press, and holy water inside the front door. They were looking for one suspect in connection with […]
Not Fair: Artist Andrea Bowers Writes to the Organizers of the Frieze Art Fair
The artist Andrea Bowers this week sent this letter to the organizers of the Frieze Art Fair, which opens today on Randall’s Island in New York City. Bowers’ great cardboard monuments to American workers are on view at the Fair, in the booths of the Susan Velmeitter and Kaufmann Repetto Galleries, and are featured in […]
“Karel,” from “3 Kinds of Exile,” a new play by John Guare
THE ACTOR appears and talks directly to us: This is a story that a friend of mine told to me a few years ago. I was sitting in his house in England. I was going through some personal troubles and a solution to them stymied me. I brought my bag of woes to him. He […]