Books & Literary Life

Literary criticism, author interviews, and book culture from within and beyond Harvard.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

by Nina Pasquini

Getting Close to the Past

A powerful public history of slavery in America

by Drew Gilpin Faust

Namwali Serpell’s Novel-In-Progress

The acclaimed author and English professor will explore mourning and reunion in The Furrows: An Elegy.

by Lydialyle Gibson

A Beloved Bengali Poet in Translation

A new book presents a mother and daughter’s final collaboration

by Lydialyle Gibson

Chapter & Verse: Who wrote...?

Correspondence on not-so-famous lost words

The "King of Palindromes"

Mark Saltveit and the art of the palindrome

by Nancy Walecki

Off the Shelf

Recent books with Harvard connections

Critique and Joy

Kevin Young’s anthology of African American poetry, from Phillis Wheatley to hip hop

by Elisa New

Origin Stories

Bow and Arrow’s mechanic, James Agee’s creative turbulence

by Primus VI

Open Book: Hiding in a Tick Mattress

Wilfred Rembert’s escape from a lynching

The Layered Histories in Black Family Keepsakes

Tiya Miles traces a mother and daughter’s story through a cotton sack.

by Juliet Isselbacher