Literature

Literature

Forty Years Without Borges: The Last Night in Geneva and the Writer Who Still Haunts Us

Tomorrow marks forty years since Jorge Luis Borges died in Geneva. Four decades on, his labyrinths keep unfolding in the mind of every new reader who dares to open them.

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

Literature

What Gertrude Stein Still Has to Teach Us, via Deborah Levy

Deborah Levy's My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein is memoir, criticism, and something that resists both labels. It tracks a year in Paris alongside a writer who was central to modernism and systematically underread. Levy pays close attention — which, in the end, is the point.

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

Literature

Kevin Young Wins the World's Richest Poetry Prize. Now, Does Anyone Care?

Kevin Young's Night Watch has won the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize, the world's richest poetry award at C$130,000. It is a formally demanding, blues-inflected collection — one that deserves readers who do not need a prize to find it.

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

Literature

Allen Ginsberg Was Right: One Hundred Years of the Poet Who Howled First

On June 3, 2026, exactly one hundred years passed since Allen Ginsberg's birth. A century of the poet who taught America to scream in verse — and who is still right about almost everything.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 4, 2026 · 3 min read

Literature

At the Breaking Point: What Five Years of Censorship Has Done to Queer Literature

Danika Ellis's Book Riot piece documents five years of coordinated pressure on queer publishing reaching a critical threshold. The books are still here. The question is how long the people around them can sustain the weight.

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

Literature

Rodrigo Rey Rosa’s ‘Animal Colonial’: The Dystopia That Doesn’t Need to Imagine the Future

Rey Rosa’s new novel takes us into a dystopian megaprison where freedom dies slowly. A book that reads like a news report dressed as fiction.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 2, 2026 · 3 min read

Literature

Read Like Wemby: The NBA Giant Who Reads Sanderson (and Why It Matters)

The San Antonio Public Library launched 'Read Like Wemby' to celebrate NBA star Victor Wembanyama's love of fantasy fiction. His reading list includes Brandon Sanderson and N.K. Jemisin.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 1, 2026 · 3 min read

Literature

The Enchanted Siblings: Melissa Albert's Debut Is the Dark Fairy Tale Adults Deserve

Melissa Albert's adult debut The Children blends Narnia, Peter Pan, and family wounds into a novel Kirkus calls 'a chilling and twisted fairy tale.' Jenna Bush Hager agrees — it's her June pick.

N Nicolas Parola · Jun 1, 2026 · 2 min read

Literature

Bobuq Sayed's Debut Novel Is About Queer Afghan Men in Istanbul — and Also About Us

In 'No God but Us', two queer Afghan men meet in Istanbul. Bobuq Sayed's debut reimagines the American Abroad trope from inside the bodies it always ignored.

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

Literature

'Roots' Returns to Knox County Schools — But the Fight Isn't Over

A Tennessee school district reversed its ban on Alex Haley's classic just weeks after removing it. What this decision reveals about American literary censorship.

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

Literature

What Books Are For: Kyiv's Literary Festival Opens Under Artillery

The 14th International Book Arsenal Festival opened in Kyiv four days after Russian attacks destroyed the city's cultural institutions. Its theme is 'Bear Your Freedom.' Its curator is a former prisoner of war.

N Nicolas Parola · May 30, 2026 · 3 min read

Literature

Twenty Years of Liesel: What The Book Thief Knows Now That It Didn't Then

Markus Zusak's novel turns twenty with a new anniversary edition containing unpublished notebook pages and a personal letter from the author. The book has not changed. We have.

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