Irina Dumitrescu

The Great Leap Backward

Lea Ypi’s memoir of her childhood in Communist Albania asks whether individual freedom is always elusive, even in liberal democracies.

Thinking in Old English

“I use my essays for the public to think through my research questions. I cannot imagine ever writing a monograph in a traditional scholarly style again.”

Industrious Habits

In Matrix, Lauren Groff continues to ask the question that has haunted her work for years: What kind of utopias can we imagine when the apocalypse is already in sight?

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

Eula Biss’s Having and Being Had is a collection of brief essays about how a person navigates the moral dilemmas of ownership and privilege.

Dudes Without Heirs

Maria Headley translates ‘Beowulf,’ a story in which women make the world, and men make their legends by destroying it.