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Lauren Elkin
Lauren Elkin is most recently the author of No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK translator of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel, The Inseparables (Vintage). Her previous book Flâneuse: Women Walk the City (Chatto/FSG) was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017, and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Her essays have appeared in Granta, the London Review of Books, Harper’s, the New York Times, and Frieze, among others. Her next book, Art Monsters, will be out in July 2023 (Chatto/FSG). She lives in London.

Articles Available Online


Maria Gainza’s ‘Optic Nerve’

Book Review

May 2019

Lauren Elkin

Book Review

May 2019

In his foreword to A Thousand Plateaus, on the pleasures of philosophy, and of Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy in particular, Brian Massumi writes:  ...

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Issue No. 8

Barking From the Margins: On écriture féminine

Lauren Elkin

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Issue No. 8

 I. Two moments in May May 2, 2011. The novelists Siri Hustvedt and Céline Curiol are giving a talk...

We’re in Try Thai, a two-storey cocktail-pink restaurant I discovered a few years ago when visiting my sister who was studying in Manchester Following our respective readings at Manchester Literature Festival, I convince Terrance Hayes, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Kayo Chingonyi and Sarah Perry to follow Google Maps from Central Library through a few dark alleyways to Chinatown in search of ‘this great Thai place I know’   Have you ever confidently remembered the food somewhere being great but suddenly − in certain company − you worry the whole walk there they’ll be like ‘great food?’ and forever you will be known as the one who makes bad dinner suggestions…?   Terrance Hayes: I refuse to answer any serious questions   Rachel Long: I’ll have to make all this up then   TH: Yeah, make it up I’d be more interested in reading a made-up interview than a real one   RL: OK Why do you wear two watches?   TH: I’m a timelord Umm, my daughter got me this one [left wrist] when she was seven, and then when the iWatch was invented they all got together and got me this [right wrist] So two watches   Victoria Adukwei Bulley: Whereabouts do you live in New York?   TH: In the village Pretty much NYU, but a little further out – in faculty housing   RL: So, you’re like roomies with Sharon Olds?   TH: Yeah, we’re in the same building I was in the elevator the other day and I felt this… like I felt rather than saw her Sharon Olds is a Scorpio too, so I could just feel this energy, this ball of pink and white Her white hair Yeah, she’s in the building Last time I saw her she was talking about cats, and spiders I can tell you a story like that about Zadie [Smith] too… It was my first time meeting her in person I knew who she was, of course, but as soon as I met her I was like… she’s a Scorpio   RL: Is this the wine list? Who’s for wine? [Deciding chatter We decide on white A Gavi] You’re sure no wine?   TH: Only tequila Expensive so no risk of hangover tequila

Contributor

August 2014

Lauren Elkin

Contributor

August 2014

Lauren Elkin is most recently the author of No. 91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK...

The End of Francophonie: The Politics of French Literature

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Issue No. 2

Lauren Elkin

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Issue No. 2

I. We were a couple of minutes late for the panel we’d hoped to attend. The doors were closed and there was a surly-looking...

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Interview

Issue No. 9

Interview with Rebecca Solnit

Tess Thackara

Interview

Issue No. 9

Rebecca Solnit’s The Faraway Nearby, like many of her books and essays, is a tapestry of autobiographical narrative, environmental and...

Interview

December 2017

Interview with Peter Stamm

Seren Adams

Interview

December 2017

Peter Stamm’s international reputation as a writer of acute psychological perception and meticulously precise prose has been growing steadily...

Art

September 2014

On the Ground

Teju Cole

Art

September 2014

I visited Palestine in early June 2014, just before the latest wave of calamity befell its people. For eight...

 

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