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You’re Here Too by Tiffany Huang In Shanghai, I told myself I found my future husband while wandering past the mottled bark of plane trees under spring canopies in the French Concession. He was a Chinese American on vacation from San Diego; I was on a business trip while living in Hong Kong. We had […] The post I Lost
The first known Filipino American memoir, Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart, was published in 1946. The next wouldn’t appear on the American literary landscape for nearly 60 years. Then, starting around 2018, something shifted: a surge of memoir and hybrid writing by Filipino American writers that hasn’t slowed
“Zulum” by Miljenko Jergović, co-translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać and Mirza Purić Djevojka sokolu zulum učinila / A maiden did a falcon harm The word “zulum” means injustice and violence. The falcon, which was assailed by terror, its nest burnt, retaliates while keeping with its nature. There were, I believe, times whe
Emily St John Mandel is a powerhouse of a writer. Like many, I’ve been a fan for the long haul, devouring each of her books as soon as they release. Her writing is unlike any other: utterly original, boundary-pushing, and full of sharp observations. The creativity in her novels is boundless, and I’m always delighted […
The Bone Hermit It’s very inconvenient that the hermit crab has taken up residence in your bones. At first it was disconcerting, to see him skittering along the beach, parading your salt-bleached toes outside our cottage. Sometimes he stops, right at the edge of the garden, and folds himself up into the crook of your [
Somewhere in France, two girls launch a boat into the sea. So begins Naima Coster’s latest novel, Take What You Can. We follow the girls—Milly and Val—as they navigate the waves and, as the novel unfolds further, become successful women, continuously pulled against the uneven terrain of their marriages, babies, careers
The following coming-of-age novels by African women authors are shaped by an understanding of the deep and complex relationships between women. In these works, the individual path of the traditional bildungsroman narrator is transformed into a dual path involving two (or more) young women at the cusp of self-realizatio
He Was My Father by Hannah Levy When I get the call, I’m sitting cross-legged on a golf course in the redwoods, perched on one of those artificial mounds of grass. It’s the only place where I have reception in this small town. I look up and the evening light moves through the trees like […] The post My Father Called Me
As you might imagine, we read a lot of books here at EL. Followers of our Instagram may be familiar with our long-running What We’re Reading series, where we post every other week about what staff members have been reading and loving. Recently, we decided it was time to make this tradition a little more […] The post 15
“Our Inheritance Was Left to Us by No Testament,” an excerpt from An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail by Helene Giannecchini, translated by Anna Moschovakis I meet her online. She is named Myriam. I am 24, she is 40, which is unusual for me: I usually date people my age. I come across her profile […] The post We’ve Inherited
For several years, I’ve enjoyed Stacey Yu’s videos about literary fiction on TikTok. On a particularly cozy, intellectual corner of the platform, she spotlights forgotten classics, works in translation, and contemporary novels—particularly those with elegant, careful prose. So when Yu announced that she would be releas
We usually think of the writer as a solitary being, whereas if you actually look at the record, books spring up from complex ecosystems. As the great writer Juan Rulfo said when questioned about his inability to publish a new book, “My uncle died.” Meaning, all of his stories came from his uncle. So books […] The post
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