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“Michael Kohlhaas,” the Book That Made the Novel Modern

Heinrich von Kleist’s life, like much of his work, was brief and dramatic.Photograph from Hulton Archive / Getty“Michael Kohlhaas,” an 1810 novella by the German poet and dramatist Heinrich von Kleist, is a work of almost total calamity. Its speed and cataclysmic force are palpable from the opening paragraph:In the middle of the 16th...

The Mysterious “Sweating Sickness” in Hilary Mantel’s “Wolf Hall” Trilogy and the Private Country of Illness

“The Monk,” by Hans Holbein, depicting death.Art work by Hans Holbein / AlamyAt the beginning of quarantine, when the magnitude of the moment was blooming so strangely, I felt anesthetized by simultaneity. Too much was happening, and so much of it was frightening. Graves were being dug in trenches in New York City. Bicycle-delivery...

A New World Through My Window

From my window, I can see a white mulberry, a tree I’m fascinated by—one of the reasons I decided to live where I live. The mulberry is a generous plant—all spring and all summer it offers dozens of avian families its sweet and healthful fruits. Right now, the mulberry hasn’t got back its leaves,...

Holding Virginia Woolf in Your Hands

What moves you to stand in the presence of the house, the landscape, the objects of a writer whom you so admire? Why are literary pilgrimages so compelling? Virginia Woolf explains: “It would seem to be a fact that writers stamp themselves upon their possessions more indelibly than other people.” Certainly, each year, thousands...

“The Crying Book” Reveals How Tears Can Help Us, and How They Can’t

In 2013, researchers led by Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, published a paper on “hedonic reversal,” a form of “benign masochism” in which people take pleasure in “initially negative experiences that the body (brain) falsely interprets as threatening.” Some of these experiences included eating a chili pepper or...

The Life Lessons of “Little Lulu”

Three panels from “Marge’s Little Lulu: Tubby’s Travels.”Courtesy Classic Media, LLC and Drawn & Quarterly.I grew up in the golden age of comics: the nineteen-forties, and most particularly, the five years immediately after the end of the Second World War. Comics were one of the main sources of entertainment for children then: there was...

What W. E. B. Du Bois Conveyed in His Captivating Infographics

In 1893, Ida B. Wells published a pamphlet titled “The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition.” The expo, which lasted for six months, was held in Chicago and was meant to chart the trajectory of the Americas in the four hundred years since Columbus had arrived. Though a...

“Talking of Dead Jack” | The New Yorker

Oct 22 130AM 1969Two watches ticking in the dark, fly buzz at the black window, telephone calls all day to Florida and Old Saybrook,1 Lucien, Creeley, Louis,2 —“drinking heavily” and “your letter made him feel bad,” said Stella.3All last nite (as talking on farm4 w/ Creeley day before) in bed brooding re Kerouac’s “After...

The 2019 National Book Awards Longlist: Poetry

This week, The New Yorker will be announcing the longlists for the 2019 National Book Awards. This morning, we present the ten contenders in the category of Poetry. Earlier this week, we shared the lists in the categories of Young People’s Literature and Translated Literature. Check back tomorrow morning for Nonfiction.Ilya Kaminsky’s “Deaf Republic”...

The 2019 National Book Awards Longlist: Translated Literature

This week, The New Yorker will be announcing the longlists for the 2019 National Book Awards. This morning, we present the ten contenders in the category of Translated Literature. Check back tomorrow morning for Poetry.This is the second time that the National Book Award for Translated Literature has been awarded, and the second time...