I was present when someone asked the poet Sophocles: “How’s your sex life, Sophocles? Can you still make love to a woman?” “Shush, man,” the poet replied. “I am very…

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By Rachel Cusk, from Transit, a novel that was published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Cusk is the author of eight previous novels, most recently Outline (2014).

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Some writers begin to write with talent, quickly earn a reputation among readers and critics, and then are suddenly silenced forever. We had two such men at the Yiddish Writers’…

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By Peter Handke, from The Moravian Night, which was published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Handke is the author of more than a dozen novels. Translated from the…

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Key West is Neil’s idea, and Mara can’t think of a reason to refuse. She knows next to nothing about the Keys, only that it’s expensive to buy bread and…

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By Claire-Louise Bennett, from a manuscript in progress. Her first book, Pond, was published by Riverhead Books in July.

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In this one he’ll only have one daughter and no other child. In this one he’ll be divorced and his ex-wife will live in California. In this one he’ll live…

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By Roger Lewinter, from Story of Love in Solitude, a collection of short fiction that was published this month by New Directions. Lewinter, who lives in Switzerland, is the author…

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Nowhere are we so exposed, so vulnerable, as on an elevated platform at a suburban train depot. In balmy weather, choosing to stand outside to await the 11:17 a.m. to…

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