The Fiction Issue 2009
Jim Shepard
In lovingly researched stories and novels, Jim Shepard traverses the globe and glides through history in such a way that reading through his collected output, you’re as likely to encounter ancient Greeks or discontented American teens as you are...
“The Hunter and His Dogs”
Saah Millimono is the chief fiction writer at the Daily Observer, Liberia’s most popular newspaper. Each week, the Observer publishes one of Saah’s stories. They primarily deal with sorcery, witchcraft, deception, and the hardship of life.
Modern Fiction Is All Rubbish
Roger Lewis’ 2002 biography of Anthony Burgess polarised critics and his latest book, Seasonal Suicide Notes, is a diary-cum-memoir that made me laugh until I pissed myself on the 185 bus.
Duncan Fallowell
At 21 Duncan Fallowell was the Spectator’s first rock critic. He then released the anthology Drug Tales in 1979, before promptly giving up drugs to prevent “burning out.”
“Sits the Queen”
Damion Searls is an author and award-winning translator, most recently of Rilke’s The Inner Sky: Poems, Notes, Dreams, Proust’s On Reading, and the Robert Walser stories in this issue.
“3 Stories”
Robert Walser was underappreciated in his time and is still sort of a loosely kept secret today, passed around by writers and literature nerds like a test of how good one’s taste really is.
“little Red Riding Hood And Blind Boy Willy The Pirate”
When Eric Dando’s first novel, Snail, came out in Australia in 1996, he was the youngest author to ever have been published by Penguin.
Iain Banks
In a publishing world that restricts writers to one genre, Iain Banks has forged a career as a roundly applauded writer of both science fiction and books that don’t have robots and spaceships in them.
Eileen Myles & Jonathan Galassi Talk About Poetry
Jonathan Galassi is a poet, a translator, an editor, and the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, which happens to be our favorite publishing house.
Wands And Swords, Pentangles And Cups
For W.B. Yeats, the ordinary world would fade away, and he would walk and talk in a spiritual realm that he believed truly existed around and outside the physical world.
The Mystery Of B. Traven
B. Traven is the most shadowy figure in the history of literature. Though there are hordes of Traven theorists and stacks of books written about him, there is still no consensus on his real name, his birthplace, or his exact history.
Iain Banks
In a publishing world that restricts writers to one genre, Iain Banks has forged a career as a roundly applauded writer of both science fiction and books that don’t have robots and spaceships in them.