Colm Tóibín

‘Her Own Woman’

In Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy created herself on the page—and then reimagined the self she had established.

Haunted by Fiction

In Mark O’Connell’s A Thread of Violence, the murderer Malcolm Macarthur lurks in the gray area between life and literature.

The Pitch of Passion

James Baldwin was fascinated with eloquence itself, the soaring phrase, the rhythm pushed hard, the sharp and glorious ring of a sentence.

In the Streets of Barcelona

In Antagony, the Spanish writer Luis Goytisolo attempts to imagine a new sort of novel in which the streets have the force of character and urban topography has its own destiny.

Cut, Mold, Reshape, Tear

From an early age, Picasso worked with anything that was to hand—including, often, scissors and paper. 

Revisiting the Past

“Poems and novels can both come from impulse.”

The Secrets of Others

In Parallel Mothers, Pedro Almodóvar goes beyond his familiar themes of sex and motherhood and into new territory: the legacy of the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso’s Obsessions

The last volume of John Richardson’s biography documents the rivalry between Dora Maar and Marie-Thérèse Walter for the painter’s attention and his intense engagement with depicting them.

Father & Son

‘We Must Be Light!’

What emerges most strongly from James Merrill’s collected letters is their lightness of touch, lightness of spirit, and the quality of affection on display.

Shadow Selves

‘The Man in the Red Coat’ by Julian Barnes

Nasty, Brutish, and Long

Pat Steir's 'Waterfall' Paintings

While it should be possible for someone looking at Pat Steir’s “Waterfall” paintings at the Barnes Foundation to feel that they depict or suggest the flowing of water downward over rock or stone, that is to miss the point of works that are concerned much more with the potential of paint than the need to represent something in nature.

Tintoretto’s Wildness

‘Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice’ at the National Gallery of Art, through July 7, 2019

Our Concentration Camps

This generation will be remembered for having allowed for concentration camps for children to be built on “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” This is happening here and now, but not in our names.

The Aristocracy’s Swann Song

Desolation Row

Lorca was interested in simple freedoms in a period in Spain when nothing was simple

The Heart of Conrad

Joseph Conrad’s heroes were often alone, and close to hostility and danger.

The Class Renegade

Édouard Louis’s ‘The End of Eddy’

Shadows & Ghosts