If you think of the great cultural power couples of our time, you may be forgiven if literary duo Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt aren’t at the top of your list. Meeting in 1981 and marrying a year later, the pair have since resided in New York, working away their afternoons and convening to critique […]
Women are heinous, devilish creatures who possess “an unshrinking relentless soul” – or at least that is what is dictated by Charlotte Dacre in her famed novel of 1806, Zofloya; or, the Moor. Set in late fifteenth century Venice, Zofloya; or, the Moor tells the tale of Victoria Loredani, villainess and entitled daughter of the Duke and Duchess […]
The writing of Eve Babitz, much like the author herself, has long had a rapturous cult following. Since 2015 however, she has risen as a more recognisably adored icon of the American literary canon, aided by the New York Review of Books, which has re-issued a beautifully covered collection of her works. An author and […]
“It is never until one realizes that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one’s own existence.” ― Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity What does it mean to be a European? That may seem quite a loaded question, but for Stefan Zweig, accomplished early twentieth century Austrian author, it […]
Sitting on my bookshelf is an unassuming paperback bound in a plain white sleeve, its title, The Years, emblazoned across its front, the only clue to what lies within. Between the covers is Annie Ernaux’s 2008 memoir, translated by Alison L. Strayer: a capsule of her memories between 1941 and 2006, interspersed with accounts of the […]
Reconciling what I believe to be one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century with his unforgivable views has not been easy for me. Louis-Ferdinand Céline, the famed French novelist, was also an anti-Semite. His 1932 novel Journey to the End of the Night (Voyage au bout de la nuit) avoids the polemical stance he […]
Remember Nikki Grahame’s ‘Who is she?’ tantrum on the 2006 series of television’s Big Brother? No? For those who haven’t spent all of quarantine studying hun culture history (no need to show off, get onto Youtube), her ‘Who is she? Who is she? Where did you find her?!’ meltdown recently became an unlikely inspiration for my Literature professor, who, when I […]
Content warning: suicide mention and mention of mental illness Sylvia Plath remains today one of the most influential and noteworthy women in literature, her fiercely emotional poetry holding a disconcerting mirror up to readers and the society in which they live. Plath was born in 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts and went on to study at […]