Nonfiction

Essays

When Does a Divorce Begin?

Most people think of it as failure. For me it was an achievement.
Anahid Nersessian
Books

Vanity Fair’s Heyday

I was once paid six figures to write an article—now what?
Bryan Burrough
A Closer Read

Taking Offense

Reading through bad feeling
Garth Greenwell
Dan Fox as a child with his nain, or grandmother, in the chicken-filled yard of Siambr Wen, near Llanrwst, North Wales, UK
Essays

What Happened When I Began to Speak Welsh

By learning my family's language, I hoped to join their conversation.
Dan Fox
Sepia toned photograph showing painter Joan Mitchell behind a canvas in her studio
Essays

The Unfolding of Time in Paint

My encounters with Joan Mitchell's panels
Rachel Cohen

Browse

Nonfiction

A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
From the Archives

Making Contact

Encounters with readers
Annie Dillard
July 1, 1988
From the Archives

Women's Rights: Unspeakable Issues in the Constitution

Nancy F. Cott
June 1, 1988
From the Archives

A Courier for Jacques Lacan

The psychoanalyst invited me for lunch at his Parisian apartment—and drew me into his orbit
Eileen Simpson
April 1, 1987
From the Archives

A. Philip Randolph

Remembering the civil rights leader and my friend of over four decades
Bayard Rustin
April 1, 1987
Polaroid of Francine du Plessix Gray
From the Archives

Charles Olson and an American Place

Francine du Plessix Gray
April 1, 1987
From the Archives

E. M. Forster

The novelist valued friendship above all else
Robert Giroux
April 1, 1987
From the Archives

Maugham

Mary Lee Settle
April 1, 1987
From the Archives

Meeting Matisse

I came looking for the genius behind La Ronde—and found a man sulking over old clippings
Quentin Bell
April 1, 1987
From the Archives

Retrospect: Poetry in Review

Penelope Laurans
December 1, 1985
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
From the Archives

Singing with the Fundamentalists

Annie Dillard
January 1, 1985