Page 7 | Harper's Magazine

20th century

Cock and Ball Story

by Janet Frame,

From Jay to Bee, a collection of letters by Janet Frame (1924–2004) to William Theophilus Brown, a painter, and published in May by Counterpoint. Frame was the author of thirteen…

The Origins of Speech

by Tom Wolfe,

In the beginning was Chomsky

El Bloqueo

by Joy Gordon,

The Cuban embargo continues

Rational Numbers

by Joe Nicholson Jr.,

Several days after I arrived in Havana I asked my host why all the toilet seats were missing. “We don’t use them here,” he replied, as if it were an…

My Perfect Season

by Mark Edmundson,

Playing it safe in the Pee Wee League

Trick of the Russian Soul

by Svetlana Aleksievich,

From Secondhand Time, an oral history of post-Soviet Russia compiled by Svetlana Alexievich and published last month by Random House. Alexievich is the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in…

Cinefiles

by Lucy Sante,

By Luc Sante, from an essay that appeared in March in Metrograph Edition, a publication of the Metrograph Theater in New York. Sante’s most recent book is The Other Paris.

Beating Around the Bush

by Dorothea Tanning,

By Dorothea Tanning, from a letter written to Muriel Streeter in May 1947 and published in the most recent issue of A Public Space. Tanning was an artist and writer. Streeter…