What defines the strongest fictional characters? The most intriguing ones are often developed, revealed or transformed based on their wishes and desires; in other words, what they crave. The more ...

I suppose walking out in the midst of an argument is not a mature option. But walking out, leaving, even disappearing in order to carve out some sense of freedom? That, I believe, is an act of power ...

Cultural alienation is the feeling of being disconnected or estranged from one’s own culture or the culture in which one lives. While these stories traverse continents and cultures painting vivid ...

It begins with a desire to escape. Travel is an elixir, Shirley Hazzard wrote, a talisman. And what is the act of opening a book, if not an act of travel, of transportation? If not, something ...

Growing up as a Javanese daughter, there was one word that was drilled deep into my head by my mother: malu, which means “shame.” I had a huge list of things that I shouldn’t do or say because they ...

When we think of a family business, what springs to mind first is probably a straightforward, even heteronormative, structure: a commercial concern (hardware store; funeral home; shipping firm) ...

For many writers right now, the hardest question isn’t how to respond to the world, but how to keep writing at all without losing the joy that made the work possible. The pressure to address crisis—to ...

We have entered a period of spectacular bowing and scraping, in which White House staff compete publicly in stroking the ego of their flattery-addicted boss. Sucking-up takes a variety of forms, from ...

The first piece of information you learn about someone is usually their name; it feels like a step towards learning who they are, even though it often doesn’t reveal much about them. In real life, ...

National Book Award winner Yōko Tawada blends fiction and reality to create a fragmented sensation when moving between physical spaces like Japan, Russia, Siberia, and Germany. The reader becomes a ...

Born in another country and a citizen of this one, I’ve always thought that there’s a distinction to be made regarding how and when and why one immigrates—or doesn’t. To leave, to stay: who do we ...

We often associate magical stories with childhood—maybe because of fairy tales, maybe because so many of us grew up on Harry Potter, but stories about wizards and dragons are often seen as immature.