The innovations of A.R. Ammons

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Discussed in this essay: Chester B. Himes: A Biography, by Lawrence P. Jackson. W. W. Norton. 640 pages. $35. Early in Chester Himes’s first and best-known novel, If He Hollers…

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By Emma Reyes (1919?2003), a painter, from a letter written in 1969 to Germán Arciniegas, a historian and journalist. The Book of Emma Reyes, a memoir, will be published in…

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John Ashbery’s well-spent youth

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By Anne Garréta, from Not One Day, which was published this month by Deep Vellum. Garréta is a French novelist and a member of the Oulipo. Not One Day chronicles…

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By Javier Marías, from To Begin at the Beginning, a reflection on the art of writing fiction. The book was published in October by Sylph Editions as part of their…

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From transcripts of conversations between Maria Irene Fornes, a Cuban-American playwright and director, and Michelle Memran, a filmmaker. Memran’s documentary about Fornes’s life, The Rest I Make Up, is currently…

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By Abdelfattah Kilito, from The Tongue of Adam, which was published this month by New Directions. Kilito was born in Morocco in 1945. Translated from the French by Robyn Creswell.

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Thomas De Quincey’s bad habits

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