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 photograph of a tree.
Essays

The Tolstoyans

On my father's followers
Alexandra Tolstoy
and
Spencer Barnes
December 1, 1977
From the Archives

Achieving the Impossible: Thomas Mann

Henry Hatfield
June 1, 1977
From the Archives

Psychotherapy and Moral Culture: A Psychiatrist’s Field Report

Fred Bloom
March 1, 1977
From the Archives

Reading and Misreading

Jonathan Culler
October 1, 1975
From the Archives

Pynchon’s Gravity

Edward Mendelson
July 1, 1973
Detail of a microchip
Essays

Creativity, Poetic Language, and the Computer

What's distinctly human about writing a poem?
Marie Borroff
June 1, 1971
From the Archives

Reminiscences of Thomas Mann

Konrad Kellen
March 1, 1965
From the Archives

The Function of Criticism Once More

Robert Langbaum
December 1, 1964
From the Archives

The Idea of Perfection

Iris Murdoch
March 1, 1964
From the Archives

New Books in Review

Poems and Books of Poems
Thom Gunn
October 1, 1963