Literary Essays

Meet Dr. Dino Martins, an awarding-winning entomologist of Kenya’s Turkana Basin, where life was born. His specialty is the hidden, squirming world of parasites—some of the most misunderstood and important creatures with whom we share the Earth (and our bodies). Martins introduces us to the...

A full-frontal confrontation of the ways we perform desire and shame—from the downright bizarre to the frighteningly relatable—by the award-winning author of A Sharp Endless Need An employee at a hunting ground where people pay to act out hate crimes prepares to meet their girlfriend’s...

An uncompromising and sensually charged collection from one of the great practitioners of the short story. Squandering the Blue is Kate Braverman’s debut story collection, a fierce, hallucinatory vision of Southern California and the women who move through its heat, glamour, and wreckage. Set...

“Ahmad’s compassion, her deep care for the psychological and emotional nuances of her characters, never wavers.” – The New York Times Book Review In a searing collection by the award-winning author of The Return of Faraz Ali, characters seek to make their futures their own in a Pakistan...

A gripping collection of propulsive, psychologically suspenseful stories by the legendary Joyce Carol Oates “who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers” (The New York Times Magazine) “A genius in the truest sense of the word.”—Rebecca Makkai “One of the...

A spellbinding story collection from Booker Prize finalist Ruth Ozeki, about the lives we almost lived, the people we can’t quite forget, and the stories that shape us long after the last page is turned In this spirited and emotionally resonant collection, award-winning novelist Ruth Ozeki...

A piercing, unforgettable memoir-in-essays about the contradictions and racism present in intimate relationships that are so little discussed, and yet form the backbone of white supremacy. Fugitive Archives will redefine the conversation about race in America today, from our closest, most...

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. “In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance—an instrument for creating a world rooted in...

ONE OF PEOPLE'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026 A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time Read alone, each story in Lauren Groff’s electric collection is an individual triumph, bold, agile, and packed with power. Read...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY DUGGINS PRIZE "Hypnotic...a haunting romance about desire, obsession, and ambition that is sure to get your heart rate up." —Time Magazine "R.O...

Established early in the last century as a memorial to O. Henry, this annual collection has consistently offered a remarkable sampling of contemporary short stories. Each year stories are chosen from large and small literary magazines and a panel of distinguished writers is enlisted to award the...

The "utterly compelling, uncommonly beautiful" collection of personal essays (Newsweek) that established Jo Ann Beard as one of the leading writers of her generation. Cousins, mothers, sisters, dolls, dogs, best friends: these are the fixed points in Jo Ann Beard's universe, the constants that...

By his longtime friend and a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, the definitive biography of Larry McMurtry, the legendary author and screenwriter of Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, and Brokeback Mountain, who transformed our vision of the West. Before Larry McMurtry became one of the...

A collection of short stories from the National Book Award-winning author of Mating "Powerful and original...always convincingly authentic. The ironies keep cutting in new directions." —The New York Times Whether they are Americans, Brits, or a stubborn and suicidally moral Dutchman...

The essential Khushwant Singh collection. In an essay in this anthology, Khushwant Singh claims that he is not a nice man to know. Whatever the truth of that assertion, there is little question about his skill as a witty, eloquent and entertaining writer. This book collects the best of over...

Jack Kerouac’s archive is vast. Throughout his life he was constantly writing, and he meticulously saved and catalogued his material. The result is that beyond the work published in his lifetime there has been a rich stream of posthumous writing that is far from tapped. This collection of previously unpublished writing culled from the Kerouac archive, and as a companion to Paul Maher Jr.'s Becoming Kerouac, spans Kerouac’s adult life, from a journal written at age seventeen to autobiographical reflections a few years before his death.

A lively inquiry into a literary genius, the translators who immortalized him, and what it means to cultivate a rich inner life in turbulent times "What happens to a writer's work when it is translated–specifically, what happens if his name is Franz Kafka?" In Kafkaesque, Maïa Hruska traces...

A partir de siete preguntas que funcionan como disparadores, ¿A qué llamamos literatura? intenta responder cuestiones centrales en los estudios literarios: cómo se clasifican las obras, por qué las valoramos, qué valoramos en ellas, cómo representan mundos posibles, cómo las leemos, cómo circulan en la vida social, cómo se insertan en los conflictos que atraviesan nuestra cultura. Dirigido por José Luis de Diego, el presente volumen es el resultado de convertir -obligado por las restricciones sanitarias de 2020- las clases orales en clases escritas.

Innocence is lost to unforgettable experience in these brilliant stories by E. L. Doctorow, as full of mystery and meaning as any of the longer works by this American master. In “The Writer in the Family,” a young man learns the difference between lying and literature after he is induced...

“Vivid . . . These stories, in which class divisions form impassable rifts and submission to the status quo comes at great psychic cost, have much to say about our contemporary reality." —The New York Times Book Review “What a gift to have these stories translated, finally, into English...