Conversation – Page 3

A Conversation between Giada Scodellaro and Amina Cain on Marie NDiaye’s “Self-Portrait in Green” (translated by Jordan Stump)

Book ReviewsSeptember 28, 2023 by Amina Cain and Giada Scodellaro

[ad_1] French novelist, screenwriter, and playwright Marie NDiaye had already published eight works and won the Prix Femina, a prestigious literary award chosen by an exclusively female jury, when she penned her novella Self-Portrait in Green, or Autoportrait en vert, in 2005. Four years and only two books later, NDiaye became the first Black woman … Read more

A Conversation with Elyssa Maxx Goodman – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 27, 2023 by Ian MacAllen

[ad_1] Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City examines drag performance from the 19th Century through the contemporary era, from broad cultural trends to the individual experiences of performers. Elyssa Maxx Goodman dives into language, legalities, and the ebb and flow of perceptions. I first met Goodman a year ago … Read more

A Conversation with Nathan Hill on “Wellness” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 26, 2023 by Angie Raney

[ad_1] Rarely do you read a novel that makes you want to get up and finish that essay you’ve let sit idle in your word document for months. Even more rarely do you read a novel that reminds you why you became a writer in the first place. Nathan Hill’s debut, The Nix, took the … Read more

A Conversation with RS Deeren – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 19, 2023 by Michael Welch

[ad_1] I vividly remember a moment when someone in one of my writing workshops described my writing as “blue collar” because I was writing about my father’s work as a Chicago firefighter. Until then, I had always viewed my upbringing as comfortably middle class. My parents worked incredibly hard and sacrificed often in order to … Read more

A Conversation With Mary Jo Bang – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsSeptember 14, 2023 by Mandana Chaffa

[ad_1] Mary Jo Bang’s acclaimed translation of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno starts with this unforgettable verse: “Stopped mid-motion in the middle / Of what we call our life, I looked up and saw no sky—Only / a dense cage of leaf, tree, and twig. I was lost.” As I am “mid-motion in the middle” of my … Read more

A Conversation With Sarah Rose Etter About Ripe – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJuly 13, 2023 by Brianna Avenia-Tapper

[ad_1] On the cover of Ripe, glistening red seeds cling to thin lines of white flesh—pomegranate innards. It is the perfect image for this book: close-up, torn open, almost bloody, almost biblical, impossible to ignore. Inside this cover, a deadly pandemic is creeping across the globe, rents are rising to untenable levels, and men are … Read more

A Conversation with Patrick Mackie on “Mozart and Motion” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsJune 8, 2023 by Ryan Asmussen

[ad_1] A book that will unquestionably stand among the more poignant investigations of Mozart and his genius, Mozart and Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces, by poet and former Harvard visiting fellow Patrick Mackie, is a serious study of the composer’s character and music as it fits within the context of European manners … Read more

A Conversation with Annelyse Gelman about “Vexations” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMay 30, 2023 by Mandana Chaffa

[ad_1] Annelyse Gelman’s curiosity and passion for language, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and experimentation imbue all her projects. Two of them—her new full-length poem, Vexations, and website Midst—also prove her fascination with craft and process. In our free-ranging conversation—encompassing poems as objects, durational art, text scores, endless beginnings and endings, and generative collaborations—Gelman’s enthusiasms are front and … Read more

A Conversation with Aram Mrjoian – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMarch 17, 2023 by Michael Welch

[ad_1] Anthologies are simultaneously one of the most important venues for literature and an almost impossible task to create. Readers expect to be enlightened on multiple levels, with each individual entry telling a cohesive story while also working collectively with the other entries to add up to a larger meaning. At the heart of every … Read more

A Conversation with Patricia Smith About “Unshuttered” – Chicago Review of Books

Book ReviewsMarch 13, 2023 by Mandana Chaffa

[ad_1] A list of Patricia Smith’s achievements in poetry could take up much of this interview. A poet, playwright, essayist, educator and mentor, she’s deservedly won nearly every accolade and award, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, and earlier this year she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. … Read more