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Dear Amy, Jill (1884) is a fast-pacing coming of age story with subtle social commentary and strong feminist undertones. The novel centres on the eponymous heroine, Jill,…… Read more “This look of sadness would last perhaps for a minute”
Tag: Queer
May it sting me until it extinguishes me
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian author Ricardo Domeneck, in various translations. You can…… Read more “May it sting me until it extinguishes me”
The first tear opened up that day
Dear Victor, ‘The Love of Singular Men’ (2016. Original: O amor dos homens avulsos, not translated yet) reads like a delicate web, a coming-of-age tale of affection,…… Read more “The first tear opened up that day”
Very soon I will send you something, a few birds of fire
Dear Alejandra, I confess that I have been reading your letters, Blímele. More than that: I’ve been carrying this Nueva Correspondencia Pizarnik (ed. Ivonne Bordelois and Cristina Piña,…… Read more “Very soon I will send you something, a few birds of fire”
A woman with exposed bricks
Hi, folks, Next on my series of poetry posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have five poems by Brazilian poet Angélica Freitas, translated by Hilary Kaplan.…… Read more “A woman with exposed bricks”
Flesh is a function of enchantment
Dear Angela, While reading your novel The Passion of New Eve (1977), I could not stop thinking to myself: this must be how it feels to go…… Read more “Flesh is a function of enchantment”
That indefinitely extended requirement that one human being makes upon another
Dear Iris, “I think it’s terrible to be in danger of writing a philosophical novel”, you said in an interview. And I know you have systematically refused to be called…… Read more “That indefinitely extended requirement that one human being makes upon another”
We’re ourselves, and what does it signify?
Dear Elizabeth, Your book The Runaway (1872) is a Victorian children’s novel that quietly subverted everything I normally expect from the genre. The story revolves around a pair…… Read more “We’re ourselves, and what does it signify?”
I’ll describe my insanity through a sudden insight
Dear Christine, Do you know that feeling we have when we know where a book was going, and we know it could have worked – but it…… Read more “I’ll describe my insanity through a sudden insight”
Nostalgia was like a vine, strangling her, sickly scented
Review: The Flesh of the Peach, by Helen McClorey
If you know about yourself, presumably you know about at least one other person
Dear Mary, Your novel The Charioteer (1953) is crossed over by what it seems to be a tense string, a rein held so tightly by opposing forces…… Read more “If you know about yourself, presumably you know about at least one other person”
I dig into the heart a well of salt
“I dig into the heart a well of salt, so as to give drink to the traveler I was. I let the wind drag with it the…… Read more “I dig into the heart a well of salt”
I looked like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus
Dear Ottessa, The protagonist of your novel Eileen (2015) is one of the strangest yet most endearing literary misfits who have crossed my reading paths in recent…… Read more “I looked like a girl you’d expect to see on a city bus”
For she had a great variety of selves to call upon,
My dear, dearest Ginny, What stroke me the most in Orlando (1928) was the fact that you were once again so unabashedly bold – for having written a…… Read more “For she had a great variety of selves to call upon,”
There was so much to destroy
Dear Emma, Your fictionalization of the Manson murders, “The Girls” (2016), is a quite strong debut novel about coming of age within a structure of gender exploitation…… Read more “There was so much to destroy”
The pain of the moment, the awful uncontrolled joy, that was innocence
Dear Beryl, I read Harriet said… (written in 1958; published in 1972) during yet another sunny trip by bike, to which your dark coming-of-age novel offered a…… Read more “The pain of the moment, the awful uncontrolled joy, that was innocence”
The line of light marking the bottom of the locked door
Dear Lori, Your short-story collection The Bigness of the World (2009, 2016) followed me throughout a very pleasant trip by bike I made last May. I confess it…… Read more “The line of light marking the bottom of the locked door”
How tame they were, living in the same wind, night, and wilderness in wich she hunted and was hunted
Dear Kathleen, Your first novel, Annabel (2010), set in Croydon Harbour, a fictional village located in the remote Labrador region, on the east coast of Canada, follows…… Read more “How tame they were, living in the same wind, night, and wilderness in wich she hunted and was hunted”
