There are writers who chronicle history from the center of power, and there are writers who record it from the margins, turning displacement itself into a vantage point. Teffi, born Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya in 1872, belonged firmly to the latter. Known in her lifetime as a humorist, satirist, and chronicler of Russian émigré life, she hasContinue reading “Teffi: Wit, Exile, and the Art of Survival”
Category Archives: Literature
Antal Szerb and the Melancholy of Central Europe
There are writers who seem to belong to their time, and then there are writers who hover above it, too cosmopolitan to be contained, too ironic to be enlisted, too subtle to be safe. Antal Szerb was one of the latter. Born in Budapest in 1901, he lived through the dislocations of the twentieth century’sContinue reading “Antal Szerb and the Melancholy of Central Europe”
Marguerite Yourcenar and the Weight of History
Marguerite Yourcenar wrote as if literature were chiselled rather than composed. Her sentences have the authority of stone: grave, enduring, almost impersonal. Yet beneath their marble polish lies a voice attuned to desire, memory, and mortality. Born Marguerite de Crayencour in Brussels in 1903, she became in 1980 the first woman elected to the AcadémieContinue reading “Marguerite Yourcenar and the Weight of History”
Samuel Beckett: Silence, Language, and the Edge of Nothingness
Samuel Beckett never courted the spotlight, yet the light always found him — a Nobel Prize, a place in the canon, and the dubious honor of having his work reduced to clichés about “bleakness.” To speak of Beckett as a prophet of despair is to miss the subtler, stranger truth: he was, above all, aContinue reading “Samuel Beckett: Silence, Language, and the Edge of Nothingness”
In the Footsteps of Ernest Hemingway: A Journey Through Spain
If Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald turned France into the stage for Jazz Age brilliance, then Ernest Hemingway made Spain his proving ground. From the sun-drenched bullrings of Pamplona to the smoky cafés of Madrid, Spain was not just a backdrop but a crucible: it shaped his art, his friendships, and his myth. To follow HemingwayContinue reading “In the Footsteps of Ernest Hemingway: A Journey Through Spain”
Step into the Fitzgeralds’ Footsteps: A Guide to Their French Escapades
No couple embodied the Jazz Age more completely than F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. From Parisian cafés to Riviera villas, they turned France into both a stage and a sanctuary for their tempestuous lives. It was here that The Great Gatsby was revised, Zelda took up ballet with feverish ambition, and their circle of expatriateContinue reading “Step into the Fitzgeralds’ Footsteps: A Guide to Their French Escapades”
The Enigma of J.D. Salinger: Genius, Recluse, and the Making of an American Myth
J.D. Salinger (1919–2010) remains one of the most fascinating paradoxes in American letters. Lauded as the author of The Catcher in the Rye, a book that gave adolescent alienation its most enduring voice, he also became a cultural riddle: a man who spent the last half of his life in near silence, publishing nothing, andContinue reading “The Enigma of J.D. Salinger: Genius, Recluse, and the Making of an American Myth”
In Memoriam: Dame Jilly Cooper (1937 – 2025)
It is with deep sadness that we mark the passing of Dame Jilly Cooper, who died on 5 October 2025 at the age of 88 after a fall at her home. Her unexpected death has come as a shock to her family, friends, and the countless readers who adored her work. Born Jill Sallitt onContinue reading “In Memoriam: Dame Jilly Cooper (1937 – 2025)”
Scott & Zelda: Legacy, Love, and the Geography of a Jazz Age
Few couples loom as mythically over the 20th century as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. They were beautiful, brilliant, and reckless — the gilded children of the Jazz Age, as dazzling as the parties they haunted, and as doomed as the decade they defined. To speak of them is to speak of literature, glamour, andContinue reading “Scott & Zelda: Legacy, Love, and the Geography of a Jazz Age”
Italy in Highsmith’s Footsteps: A Ripleyesque Guide to La Dolce Vita
Anthony Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel, remains one of cinema’s most intoxicating portraits of Italy. Shot against the dazzling backdrops of Ischia, Procida, and the Amalfi Coast, the film is as much about setting as it is about identity — a world of sunlit villas, languid piazzas, and aContinue reading “Italy in Highsmith’s Footsteps: A Ripleyesque Guide to La Dolce Vita”
My World of Interiors 