Did this 1940 novel use symbolism not for aesthetic purposes, but, instead, to conceal its critique of Italian fascism from the regime’s censors?
Tag: NYRB Classics
On Our Nightstands: September 2021
A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.
Public Picks 2021
Each May we send our readers into summer with a curated list of the titles that dazzled, challenged, and inspired us most over the past year (or so).
Dirty Essays, Clean Essays
Recently translated essay collections underscore how sanitized ethical language has become in the last 60 to 70 years.
Public Picks 2020
Each year around this time we send our readers into summer with a thoughtfully curated list of the titles appearing over the past 12 months that dazzled, moved, and challenged us most.
How to Read Short Stories Like an Underdog
Departing from a fixed form, some Latin American writers employed the short story as a laboratory of writing.
Translation and Other Children: Liberaki’s “Three Summers”
While metaphors linking translation to human reproduction abound, Karen ...
B-Sides: J. R. Ackerley’s “We Think the World of You”
J. R. Ackerley’s We Think the World of You (1960) isn’t a novel I’d ever say I ...
Facts We Accept and Facts We Don’t
Several years ago, a student of mine accused me of bullying her. She looked me in the eye and calmly listed all the things I’d done: singling her out, dismissing ...
Legacies of Italian Marxism
“A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism.” What was left of this seemingly ominous prospect a century after the publication of Karl Marx and ...
B-Sides: Sylvia Townsend Warner’s “Lolly Willowes”
The year 1936 was a watershed for Bloomsbury fellow traveler Sylvia ...