Articles and updates from the New Directions staff
Today is the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas. Yesterday a live reading of Under Milk Wood, his “radio play for voices,” was performed in New York City. First …
The wonderful German writer Siegfried Lenz died yesterday in Hamburg. He was 88. Breon Mitchell, in his introduction to Lenz’s Selected Stories, remembers the writer’s …
Today is William Carlos Williams’s birthday. We celebrate with a look through the archives. (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) From Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams A …
For a packed audience last Tuesday night, Bidoun and New Directions co-hosted “The Authoritarian Turn: On the State of the Egyptian Intelligentsia” at New York …
In Brooklyn this past Tuesday, the alternative film venue Light Industry hosted a screening of The Driver’s Seat—Giuseppe Patroni Griffi’s 1974 Italian film adaptation …
In Stealth, a novel by the Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim, a young boy wanders the serpentine streets of Cairo, imbimbing its sights and sounds, and peeping into the world of the …
Here, with the first chapter of Sonallah Ibrahim’s Stealth, are photographs by Don Church, taken in the 1950s while he was on assignment with the aviation branch of the United …
The PEN World Voices Festival culminates this weekend with some excellent events, including a discussion between Colm Toibin and Laszlo Krasznahorkai this Sunday afternoon. Below …
How fitting that an evening celebrating Muriel Spark saw a downpour so relentless that umbrellas were useless. Last night, brave Spark lovers came together to remember the writer …
If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing László Krasznahorkai read from AnimalInside in a darkened room, illuminated by Max Neumann’s “dog-beast” paintings, we …
Events in Sydney, Boston, Michigan and New York! Friday, April 11: Translator Chris Andrews (Roberto Bolaño, César Aira) will participate on the panel “Translating the Boundaries …
Join Boston University for a reading and conversation with Jenny Erpenbeck. One of Germany’s rising literary stars, Erpenbeck was born in East Berlin in 1967. Her grandfather, …
In the English fairytale “Tom Tit Tot” — an English variant of the German tale “Rumpelstilzchen” — a King marries a peasant maiden whom he believes has the …
Join New Directions and BOMB for a reading by Japanese author Takashi Hiraide, author of the New York Times Best Seller, The Guest Cat. Called “careful, elegantly, …
Join Peter Cole, “one of the handful of authentic poets of his own American generation” (Harold Bloom), for a reading from his fourth collection of poetry The Invention …
Roberto Bolaño’s reputation has become that of a writer’s writer, but he might also be called a writer’s reader—for his wide, absorbent, Borgesian literary erudition—or maybe even …
New Directions has a long record of working with acclaimed and noteworthy up-and-coming book designers, like Rachel Adam. She’s been working for Rodrigo Corral Design Studio for …
The French author Margueritte Yourcenar, in an unlikely biography of Yukio Mishima, wrote that the Japanese writer had long “envisioned a certain kind of death and made it,” and …
Clarice Lispector interviewed with English subtitles. Watch at Converstational Reading.
“The deceptively simple plot plunges you — what seems like effortlessly — into a world of art, philosophy and the mysterious nature of our ties to other living things.” …
“The Invention of Influence, surpasses all previous Cole and confirms his standing as one of the most vital poets of his generation.” That’s quite the compliment! Find …
“Choose an author as you would choose a friend,” Wentworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon, counseled aspiring translators some four centuries ago. But affinity, literary and otherwise, …
Ernesto Cardenal, Latin America’s legendary poet-activist, will celebrate his 89th birthday on January 20. He’s had quite a life—revolutionary, Catholic priest, liberation …
The Quay Brothers on the set of Unmistaken Hands: Ex Voto F.H. This past November, a few ND staff and friends went to New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA) to see the premiere of …
