Fascism
The underbelly of Krochmalna Street
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Why aren’t Isaac Bashevis Singer’s gangster novels published in English?
« Everything starts with fire » — Interview with Hélène Cixous
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« The smell was like the sharp notes of a trumpet, a sort of rat-tat-tat like a burst of gunfire, a bombardment. »
Schwarzeneggerology
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On Arnold, action cinema & Übermenschlichkeit. « Arnold Schwarzenegger was action cinema’s Adamic man, alternately entering and exiting normal human time. »
The pulverization of memory
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Write your memoir in a hostile tongue. On Marina Jarre, from Latvia to Italy and back.
No man’s land
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On Edda Mussolini & fashionable fascism. Can a woman be dangerous yet powerless?
Flags & bones
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On Curzio Malaparte’s Europe — and ours. The midcentury novelist read anew, on war’s aftermath and transatlantic romance. What was, or is, « postwar Europe », anyway?
The prodigal half-rooster
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Maggie Nelson’s On Freedom and Lea Ypi’s Free spoke past one another from half a world away. But both ask whether freedoms mean anything if they are not practiced in public, and if they are not passed on — and whether the word « freedom » means anything at all.
Why we write
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A letter to George Orwell. « All narrative is hypnotic. Some narratives are more hypnotic than others. Because of you, we can be conscious of the kinds and the workings of the narratives that set out to deaden us, lessen us, make us lie, make us part of the lie. »