Books & Literary Life
Literary criticism, author interviews, and book culture from within and beyond Harvard.
Open Book: A New Nuclear Age
Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy’s latest book looks at the rising danger of a new arms race.
Off the Shelf: Recent Books with Harvard Connections
Recent books with Harvard connections
Father Columba Stewart of Hill Museum & Manuscript Library is profiled
A globe-trotting monk with the Benedictine “survival gene” seeks out treasured manuscripts.
Children's-book author Nancy Churnin is profiled
Nancy Churnin’s picture-book biographies for children span time and space.
by Sanya Sagar
Critic and poet Fred Moten, profiled by Jesse McCarthy
Fred Moten’s subversive black-studies scholarship
Frank Bidart wins the 2017 National Book Award for poetry
Five other Harvardians were also honored by the National Book Foundation.
E.E. Cummings and Samuel Beck—a Harvard undergraduate recollection
What one undergraduate learned
Harvard classicist Richard Thomas on Bob Dylan
In a new book, classicist Richard Thomas explores Bob Dylan’s literary ties to ancient Greece and Rome.
Brief life of Guy Davenport, a polymathic stylist
Brief life of a polymathic stylist: 1927-2005
Excerpt from “The Wine Lover’s Daughter” by Anne Fadiman
Anne Fadiman ’74 recalls her father, Clifton, in an excerpt from The Wine Lover’s Daughter
Found in Translation
Maureen Freely ’74, longtime translator of Orhan Pamuk, shares the nuances of bringing a text from one language to another.
by Oset Babür