Articles and updates from the New Directions staff
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 …
