Writing With One Eye Squinting at Doom

A conversation with Nancy Lemann on releasing her first novel in twenty years—and why she never stopped writing

Nancy Lemann’s forthcoming novel, The Oyster Diaries (New York Review Books, 2026) is her first publication in over twenty years—and not for lack of trying. Despite the enduring appeal of her first two books—both set in New Orleans—The Lives of the Saints (1985) and The Ritz of the Bayou (1985), ...
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Writing With One Eye Squinting at Doom

Palestinians in Their Own Words, Their Own Genres

A review of Gaza: The Story of a Genocide

With the release of Gaza: The Story of a Genocide (Verso, October 2025), editors Fatima Bhutto and Sonia Faleiro bring us a powerful addition to a lamentable literary genre: the genocide anthology. Comprising more than 20 works of poetry, art, essays, and reportage by 23 contributors—many of them Palestinian—this volume ...
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Palestinians in Their Own Words, Their Own Genres

A Lost Utopia

A review of Göran Rosenberg’s Israel: A Personal History

In a speech delivered to the United States Congress on July 25, 2024, Benjamin Netanyahu issued a sharp retort to protestors against Israel’s genocide in Gaza:  They call Israel a colonialist state. Don’t they know that the Land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah ...
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A Lost Utopia