Essays

Essays

My Year of Stalking Rachel

The quest to see without being seen
Becca Rothfeld
An image from Ingmar Bergman's Persona
The Moment

On Rereading

Remaking the world
Victor Brombert
Essays

The Wrong Daddy

Morrissey and the cult of the wounded white male
Jeremy Atherton Lin
Letters

Merrill's Last Letters

Writing to the end
James Merrill
Essays

And Finally I'll Say Goodbye

Remembering my mother, Jean Valentine
Rebecca Chace
Jean Valentine at her desk
Essays

The Ugly Side of Sisterhood

On envy and twinship
Jean Garnett
The author with her sister in childhood.

Browse

Essays

A version of the California flag with "Twitter" replacing "California" in the banner's text section
Essays

Against Abdicating Power to Big Tech

We can’t rely on Big Tech to reign over online speech
Claire Bond Potter
February 1, 2021
A stack of old issues of The Yale Review. Courtesy Pentagram
Pandemic Files

My Summer of Julien Gracq

Reading a French novelist’s examination of liminal space in a plague year
Seth Lerer
January 11, 2021
A swirling pattern on green background
Essays

Notes Upon Arrival

A diary of immigration and lost love
Bhanu Kapil
December 1, 2020
Photo of gears and machinery
Essays

The Anti-Extinction Engine

Langston Hughes and my friend, the apocalypse actuary
Anne Boyer
December 1, 2020
Pillars at National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama
Essays

The Hauntologies of Slavery

Finding history and meaning on a journey across the sea
Jonah Mixon-Webster
December 1, 2020
black and white photo of low and heavy clouds
Essays

The Heavy Air

Capitalism and affronts to common sense
Anne Boyer
December 1, 2020
The activist Gloria Richardson walking past National Guardsmen during a civil rights march in Cambridge
Essays

Unbothered

The grace of black nonchalance
Namwali Serpell
December 1, 2020
Portrait of Samuel Delany at his desk turning to look over his shoulder
Essays

Why I Write

Getting ready not to be
Samuel R. Delany
December 1, 2020
various sizes of metallic squares with gold borders
Essays

Wildness

Feminism, identity, and the willingness to be defeated
Maria Tumarkin
December 1, 2020
Cracks in ice
Essays

Did I Write a Feel-Good Book?

I survived a terrorist attack. I never expected my story might console others.
Philippe Lançon,
Steven Rendall
November 23, 2020