Essays
January 9, 2012
The Story Behind the Story: An Appreciation of Authors’ Acknowledgments 14
by Henriette Lazaridis Power
At their best, acknowledgements can be finely-wrought short stories with the author as protagonist. At least one acknowledgements has made me cry.
January 5, 2012
The Politics of Art: Middle Eastern Women in Fiction and Film 3
by Selin Gulgoz
We often receive depictions of Middle Eastern women as submissive and helpless, forced to hide their bodies, and we hardly ever discuss their determination as individuals.
November 30, 2011
Naples and The Gallery 2
by Emily St. John Mandel
John Horne Burns’ The Gallery was his first book, a chronicle of the chaos and beauty and horror of occupied Naples in 1943 and 1944. It’s an interesting hybrid: a novel in which stories alternate with an elegant travelogue, and the travelogue appears to be the author’s memoir: “I remember that at Casablanca it dawned on me that maybe I’d come overseas to die.”
November 30, 2011
The Saddest Story I Have Ever Heard: An Agnostic Appreciation of The Book of Genesis 6
by Mark O'Connell
When I think of poor Adam and Eve and their hapless abdication of paradise in return for some new knowledge, I can’t help thinking of my own incremental sense of impending banishment with each new rumor overheard, as a child, from across the border of Adulthood.
November 28, 2011
The Little Room of Danger and Depth 12
by Nigel Featherstone
In this day and age it seems almost prehistoric to want to establish a library. It’s as though I’m admitting that I’ve become a fan of riding a donkey down to the shops, or that I’ve discovered how and why things fall to the ground.
November 28, 2011
Where Have All the Catholic Writers Gone? 51
by Robert Fay
Despite such a rich literary heritage, novels — both by Catholics and non-Catholics — grappling with what used to be called “the drama of salvation” are no longer just rare, but almost unthinkable nowadays.
