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 ...

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) ...

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 ...

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, ...

The mother and son relationship is complex—fraught with pain, hurt, love and triumph. In my debut novel, No Heaven For Good Boys, the protagonist’s mother, Maimouna, loves all of her children—but when ...

Bombay, Mumbai—whatever you want to call it—is a kaleidoscope layered with complex charisma and frenetic energy. With its chaos and music, its sounds and smells, the city has been immortalized in many ...

Four in ten U.S. adults believe humanity is “living in the end times.” We see existential threats in the form of climate change, our political campaigns, war, and AI. Correspondingly, the apocalypse ...

Writing about pop culture and current technology is always a gamble, pitting critique of the present against longevity, a story that will still feel relevant after we’re gone. But for novelists ...

Sometimes you are reading a book—not even one by a well-known transphobic children’s author—and are struck, halfway through or near the end, by a bit of transphobia. Sometimes it’s load-bearing: Both ...

For avid readers, literary adaptations can be a source of both excitement and contention. Will the visual language of the film match the landscape in your head? Can the director capture that elusive ...

I have a bit of a defect as a reader. I tend to judge all works solely on whether or not they’re funny. My favorite moment in Moby Dick comes fairly early on when Ishmael starts making fun of famed ...

Not very long ago, a description of our current moment would have read like a dystopian premise: a planet afflicted with deadly weather events, with rising oceans and global migration crises, with ...