R.I.P. Paul Auster.
"If nothing else, the years have taught me this: if there’s a pencil in your pocket, there’s a good chance that one day you’ll feel tempted to start using it." In a piece from 1995, Auster answers the question "why write?"
RIP to Gabe Hudson, who made his début in The New Yorker in 2001 and whose literary intelligence and humor you can hear on his own podcast, Kurt Vonnegut Radio, and here on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast.
“She was breathless, as though she had no idea where to start among all the things we had to talk about": a story by Annie Ernaux in The New Yorker Monday.
Out tomorrow: this year's Fiction Issue, with fiction by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Andrea Lee, and Han Ong, nonfiction by Valeria Luiselli, Jennifer Egan, Orhan Pamuk, Dinaw Mengestu, Min Jin Lee, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and others.
“My heart is broken, Nell thinks. But in our family we don’t say, ‘My heart is broken.’ We say, ‘Are there any cookies?’”: a story by Margaret Atwood in The New Yorker Monday.
Coming on Monday: The New Yorker's 2021 Fiction Issue, featuring fiction by Sally Rooney, Rebecca Curtis, and Marcel Proust; memoirs by Anthony Veasna So, Margaret Atwood, Emma Cline, J. M. Holmes, David Wright Faladé, and Sterling HolyWhiteMountain.
"I think if you’re a fiction writer and you’re too intelligent, you cannot write. But if you’re stupid, you cannot write. You have to find a position in between. That is very difficult": a New Yorker Interview with Haruki Murakami.
"Girls can be like bees or like locusts: there’s something toxic and delicious and exotic about them together": Mariana Enriquez on her story in this week's issue.
"Time is the subject and material of fiction, and playing with time—pleating it, bending it, cutting it—is one of the great joys of writing": Lauren Groff on her new novella.
"I wasn’t afraid like Esperanza yet; it didn’t occur to me that I should’ve been until I saw her lean forward on her bike and begin to pedal past me": our Flash Fiction this week is "Halloween" by Venita Blackburn.
The New Yorker's Fiction Issue is out today! Read Ta-Nehisi Coates's “Conduction”: "I was fresh out of Virginia, fresh out of the pit, my remarkable escape still alive in my mind."
“Are good choices and bad choices all that different? The consequences of those choices are where life is”: a new story by Yiyun Li in The New Yorker Monday.
"The question naturally arose for me in the writing process: How do I stage the drama of a lifelong relationship in a short space of time?": Sally Rooney on her fiction in this week's issue.
2017 marked the 10th Anniversary of the Fiction Podcast. We asked you to vote for your favorite episode from the last decade. The results are in, and the winner is David Sedaris reading Miranda July, an episode from 2012.
Haruki Murakami remembers his father: "My father had been studying, no doubt conscientiously, to become a priest. But a simple clerical error had turned him into a soldier."
"The more I try to write about reality in a realistic way, the more the unreal world invariably emerges. For me, a novel is like a party. Anybody who wants to join in can join in": Haruki Murakami on his fiction in this week's issue.
"The wife had to wonder if the marriage had been a mistake. A mis-take: taking something or someone for what he is not. Mis-apprehending": a story by Joyce Carol Oates in The New Yorker Monday.
"The details in her stories are vividly specific, and yet the emotional and psychological plots could unfold anywhere. You sink into her narratives with a feeling of both strangeness and recognition": Deborah Treisman remembers Alice Munro.
"Pretend, the mother had said when she crept to her daughter's room in the night, that tomorrow is just an ordinary day": a story by Lauren Groff in The New Yorker Monday.
"I have always wanted to preserve images of the devastated landscape that remains after lovemaking. I wonder why the idea of photographing it did not occur to me before": Annie Ernaux on a year of cancer and desire.
"I don’t want to hear any more stories about rotten behavior or the battle of the sexes or the woe that is marriage. I’ve moved on. These days I’m all about love’s triumph, adversity overcome": a story by Joseph O'Neill in TNY Monday.
"Svetlana had told me that she thought I was trying to live an aesthetic life, and it was a major difference between us, because she was trying to live an ethical life": fiction by Elif Batuman in The New Yorker Monday.
"The story began as a thought experiment: Who would I be if all my memories and my language were erased?": George Saunders on his story in this week's issue.