Classic Essays

Is it sexist to say that “men are trash”? Can white people be victims of racism? Do we bear any individual responsibility for climate change? We’ve all wrestled with questions like these, whether we’re shouting at a relative across the dinner table, quarreling with old classmates on...

Con mirada atenta y pulso firme, Juan Villoro se desdobla en periodista, transeúnte, comprador de plumas, adulto nostálgico, padre responsable, brigadista de emergencia, y nos ofrece un testimonio de las múltiples experiencias que la capital mexicana depara a todos y cada uno de sus...

Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting...

Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting...

Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting...

"L'ensemble de textes lus ici, n'est nullement un rassemblement au hasard, et ses différentes parties ont pris formes et sens sous le regard les unes des autres. Une différence, toutefois. [...] Le passage du temps dans une vie, les événements qui s'y associent ont déplacé cette réflexion, restée fondamentale, vers ce qui se joue dans les existences. La pensée de la poésie se nourrit des situations de l'existence. Le poème naît dans la voix. Il s'arrime à elle par la longue chaîne d'une ancre, son écriture." (Yves Bonnefoy)

“A Room of One’s Own” is one of Virginia Woolf’s most influential works and a cornerstone of the feminist movement. In this brilliant essay, Woolf explores the limitations faced by women in the early 20th century, using captivating prose and the poetic style characteristic of a novelist. She compellingly argues that the lack of financial independence and a private space are key barriers preventing women from fully developing their literary talents

A sweeping, propulsive novel about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves, in which a man struggles to find his place in an Iran on the brink of combusting Amid the alleyways of the Zamzam neighborhood of Tehran, a woman lights herself on fire in a desperate act of...

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was born in Agra in the closing years of the eighteenth century. A precocious child, he began composing verses at an early age and gained recognition while he was still very young. He wrote in both Urdu and Persian and was also a great prose stylist. He was a careful...

On 26 January 1950, the Constitution of India was adopted formally and came into effect. Its preamble set out in brief the enlightened values it enshrined and hoped to engender. In a radical shift from mainstream constitutional history, this book establishes Dr B.R. Ambedkar's irrefutable...

Longlisted for the National Book Award Winner of the Reading the West Book Award in Fiction Winner of the Writers' League of Texas Book Award in Fiction An extraordinary short story collection about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness—from a writer whose “spellbinding, buoyant”*...

A wide-ranging collection, including two novellas and ten stories exploring complex identities, from the acclaimed author of Corregidora, The Healing, and Palmares “Gayl Jones’s work represents a watershed in American literature. From a literary standpoint, her form is impeccable . . . and...

This majestic novel by the author of India Unbound is the extraordinary chronicle, rich in passion and incident, of a Punjabi family that is uprooted from its settled existence in Lyallpur by the violence of Partition and forced to flee to India. Everything is lost in the transition, but when a...

There are more slaves in the world today than any other time in history.Enter the world of human trafficking and explore what we can do together to end this global crime. Where Were You?: A Profile of Modern Slavery by Matthew Friedman provides an up-to-date overview of human trafficking, a...

For readers of The Sum of Us and South to America, an essential new look at the roots of American inequality—and the seeds of its transformation Once the powerhouse of a fledgling country’s economy, the Mississippi Delta has been consigned to a narrative of destitution. It is often faulted...

Allahabad, early twentieth century. The British rule across India, but Avadhi culture is thriving. In this city where singers, musicians and poets assemble, a star emerges. Janki Bai Ilahabadi enthrals listeners wherever she performs, and counts as her fans maharajas and maharanis, poets and...

The journey will be long and difficult, one thousand miles. Try not to be too obvious. Stick to the backroads. You’ ll know you’ ve arrived when you get there. Stephen Bolin leaves a bizarre note by his deathbed, asking his sisters to take his body back to his birthplace in Far North...

The unifying factor of this collection is that, without exception, every author included here was in some way or another involved with or interested in the occult. In some cases, they were members of an occult organization, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, or similar such groups. Others simply had a strong personal interest in the subject matter or practiced some form of the esoteric sciences in private.

A reissue of a hidden gem from the award-winning author of Sugar, this novel tells the story of a woman who uncovers the fragility of life and the enduring strength of family love. Camilla’s childhood was immersed in love and chaos, and steeped in perfection. As an adult she hasn’t looked...

Chickpeas to Cook is the story of the woman of the tribe, women from some of the smallest of communities, often no more than a few hundred families in Singapore. How do these women live, think, breathe? What does the Dawoodi Bohra woman answer, for instance, when she’s asked if her daughter...