From a letter written by Patrick Leigh Fermor to Enrica Soma in 1961. Soma was a model and ballerina, and the wife of the director John Huston. Fermor was the…
From a survey in which participants were asked to rank their agreement with statements about Alex Jones, the host of the right-wing talk show Infowars, from “never” to “all the…
By Magda Szabó (1917–2007), from Katalin Street, a novel that was published this month by New York Review Books. Szabó was the author of The Door and the recipient of numerous literary awards.…
By Keith Waldrop, from a manuscript in progress. Waldrop has published more than a dozen volumes of poetry. His Selected Poems (Omnidawn) appeared last year.
The present is by common definition the instant between the not yet and the already, a moment as narrow and treacherous as a tightrope. But you might instead define it…
From sentences in Unko Kanji Doriru (“Poo Kanji Drills”), a series of writing-exercise books for elementary school students in Japan. The books were written by Yusaku Furuya and published in…
During the depressed years of the Thirties a good many private schools went out of business. Others cut their faculty salaries back to levels which confirmed teachers in their suspicion…
When I came into the kitchen, Ward was using a knife to help his wife, Irene, peel the skin from two buffalo tongues. The skin was discarded in a small…
As a teenager in the Mormon Church, I was led to believe I might live to see the world end — the fallen world of sin and imperfection, that is, which…
Percentage change since last year in the arrests of U.S. immigrants with criminal convictions : +18 Of immigrants without criminal convictions : +156 Portion of children with New York Public…
By Valeria Luiselli, from Tell Me How It Ends, which was published in April by Coffee House Press. Luiselli is a novelist and essayist. Her article “Terrorist and Alien” appeared in…
From Donald Trump: America’s 45th President, which was published in November by Gallopade. The biography, by Carole Marsh, is for readers aged eight and up.
From a conversation that took place in March in a high school classroom in Bryansk, Russia. Earlier that day, Maxim, a student, was arrested for spreading information about an unsanctioned…