Mitchell Abidor

2 months ago | publicseminar.org | Adam Tooze |Mitchell Abidor |Federico Finchelstein |Pamela Ballinger

German tank in Bosnia (1943) | Wikimedia Commons / CC0Two of the most shocking books about World War II were written by the Italian fascist litterateur and dandy Curzio Malaparte. His “novels” Kaputt and The Skin have been canonized through incorporation into the wonderful series of New York Review Classics. They are hailed by luminaries like Milan Kundera, Gary Indiana, and Rachel Kushner. Kaputt (1944) is a kaleidoscopic vision of Axis Europe’s upper class between 1941 and 1943.

Dec 11, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Luis Jaramillo |Alexander Sorondo |Mitchell Abidor |Edwin Frank

Cover image of The Witches of El Paso by Luis Jaramillo (Primero Sueño Press and Atria Books, 2024)On the bridge to Juárez, Marta peers down at the Rio Grande trickling along its concrete ditch. The air is heavy with diesel exhaust. People walk across the bridge carrying bright blue and red plastic bags, pushing granny carts toward El Paso. Marta thinks back to when she was a girl, and women from Juárez would knock on Olga’s door, looking for work.

Nov 25, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Chiara Bottici |Mitchell Abidor |Gwenda-lin Grewal |Adam Mansbach

Saint Christina of Bolsera (ca. 1650–1655)| Carlo Dolci / National Trust Images via Art UKI am doing it again. Teaching Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies. As I always do, I asked at the beginning of class who knew the work before our “Philosophy and Literature” class. This time, a positive surprise! One student had been introduced to de Pizan’s writing by her high school teacher—a woman, the student explained, who liked to do things outside of the box.

Nov 22, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Edwin Frank |Mitchell Abidor |Adam Mansbach |Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

Cover image of STRANGER THAN FICTION: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel by Edwin Frank (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)This book began over the kitchen sink a long time ago. I was doing the dishes after dinner. A CD of Radiohead’s album Kid A was playing, which got me thinking about a recently published book, The Rest Is Noise, by the classical music critic (and Radiohead fan) Alex Ross.

Nov 22, 2024 | publicseminar.org | Mitchell Abidor |Edwin Frank |Evangeline Riddiford Graham |Helen Schulman

“Teenage Boy Reading” | Roy Zalesky / Smithsonian Museum / CC0In the years that Edwin Frank has been at the head of the NYRB Classics publishing house, he has revived forgotten or out of print novels like John Williams’s Stoner and Vassily Grossman’s Life and Fate. He has also made available the work of previously unknown authors from America and around the world.