For the London Review of Books, Namara Smith writes about Joyce Carol Oates’s latest novel, Breathe, and her larger body of work: “Some of her finest descriptive writing is about boxing, a sport she has watched since her father took her to Golden Gloves fights when she was a child. Oates sees the boxing ring as a site where spontaneity must emerge out of a tightly disciplined structure. Boxing, she points out, is as much about losing as winning.”
New York Times Book Review critic Jennifer Wilson talks with the editors of the Oxonian Review about her work and the field: “I would love to see more reviews of literature in translation and more trend essays that incorporate writers from outside the Anglo-American context. All of that takes resources though. The real ‘main problem’ is that full-time critic positions are a rarity.”
At The Atlantic, Lovia Gyarkye revisits Octavia E. Butler’s newly reissued novel Fledgling, which follows “Shori, an amnesiac 53-year-old Black vampire,” as she emerges from a cave and learns to live among humans. For more on Butler’s life and work, read Gabrielle Bellot’s essay in Bookforum.
Cultural critic Jo Livingstone is leaving the New Republic after a five-plus year run. In addition to catching up on all the work they’ve written there, you can watch Livingstone talk about books with Lauren Oyler, Ed Park, and Omari Weekes on Bookforum’s panel “Truth or Dare: On authenticity, risk, and the future of fiction”; and read their thoughts on criticism in an acceptance speech for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.
The PERIPLUS collective has announced its fellowship recipients for the year. The program pairs Black, Indigenous and POC writers with mentors in publishing. This year’s class of fifty-nine fellows was selected from more than five hundred applicants.
Tonight at St. Ann’s Church in Brooklyn Heights, Books Are Magic hosts Isaac Butler to discuss his new book, a cultural history of Method acting, with New York Times film critic A. O. Scott.