Authors

Authors

Carlo Ginzburg, the Historian Who Listened to the Margins, Dies at 87

Carlo Ginzburg, the Italian historian who founded microhistory and taught us to listen to voices the official record preferred to ignore, died on June 17 aged 87.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 18, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

Who Guards the Language? Alex Grijelmo Enters the Royal Spanish Academy

The Royal Spanish Academy elects journalist Álex Grijelmo to its 'o' seat. A reflection on what a lifelong chronicler of linguistic deception does inside a centuries-old institution.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 15, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

Jane Yolen Wrote Over 400 Books. Her Daughter Read the Last One Aloud.

Jane Yolen, who wrote more than 400 books and changed what children's literature was allowed to be, died on June 12 at 87. Her daughter was reading Owl Moon to her at the end.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 14, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

Nobody Believed in Julian Barnes. The Princess of Asturias Prize Begs to Differ.

Julian Barnes wins the 2026 Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature — a long-overdue recognition of one of British fiction's most precise and quietly devastating voices, four decades in the making.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 13, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

Vila-Matas Wins the Premio Zenda de Honor and Literature Gets a Little Stranger

Enrique Vila-Matas receives the Premio Zenda de Honor for the 2024-2025 cycle. Recognition for a writer who has spent decades building a body of work that refuses to fit anywhere neatly.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 6, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

At 95, Antonio Gamoneda Still Fears the Future — and That Is What Saves Us

The Spanish poet confesses his deep unease about the future while working on a tribute to García Lorca. Few statements from a living writer have felt more urgent.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 6, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

Marjane Satrapi: Reading Her Name Was Already an Act of Resistance

Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis, died on June 4, 2026, at 58. She made collective trauma intimate and redefined what a graphic memoir could do. Her loss is immense.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 5, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

A Barbarian at the Olympus: Vargas Llosa Joins the Académie Française

Mario Vargas Llosa has become the first non-Francophone author admitted to the Académie Française — and he arrives not to praise French culture, but to argue with it.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 4, 2026 · 4 min read

Authors

Andy Serkis Is Having a Conversation with Gollum — and This Time It's a Memoir

Andy Serkis's forthcoming memoir 'My Pressures' promises a dialogue between the actor and his most famous characters. James Whitmore considers whether that's literature or a very expensive author Q&A.

N Nicolas Parola · May 31, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

What Counts as Writing? Olga Tokarczuk Answers the AI Question

The Polish Nobel laureate had to publicly clarify that her forthcoming novel was not written with AI. What's interesting isn't the accusation — it's what it reveals about our collective fear of no longer knowing who writes what.

N Nicolas Parola · May 29, 2026 · 3 min read

Authors

Spanish Noir Has a New Champion: Lorenzo Silva Wins the Inaugural Premio Domingo Villar

Some prizes arrive at exactly the right moment. The Semana Negra festival in Gijón has found the first natural guardian for its new distinction: Lorenzo Silva, master of Spanish noir fiction.

N Nicolas Parola · May 26, 2026 · 2 min read

Authors

Sergio Ramírez Takes Vargas Llosa's Chair at the Royal Spanish Academy

Nicaraguan exile and Cervantes Prize winner Sergio Ramírez will join the Royal Spanish Academy, filling the seat left vacant by Vargas Llosa's death.

N Nicolas Parola · May 25, 2026 · 3 min read