Mailing List


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91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK translator of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel, The Inseparables (Vintage).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:  ...

feature

Issue No. 8

Barking From the Margins: On écriture féminine

Lauren Elkin

feature

Issue No. 8

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

Benson’s Syndrome   Grapefruit I have lost the word for it Popillo? Popello? No, no It escapes her, the word, she tries to dig into the layers of memory, a time when she used to know only this language, only this rhythm, this inflection, when she used to know the small of your back, or the ribs that sometimes pushed through your skin, but it fails her, it is always out of reach, hiding behind her second language that is now her first, a senseless language with silent letters: apostle, knot, doubt     Assignation   An appointment to meet someone in secret, typically one made by lovers We were never lovers, but no one will ever as easily cover me in goosebumps     Cavities   It was in Paris where I broke my tooth, the lower left second molar, while chewing the bread with the engraved cursive P upon its breast, brought at Poilâne on rue Debelleyme in Le Marais It was our first trip together as adults The lines in my face were settling in, laugh lines, I used to laugh then We had woken up early to walk there in the rain, a slight drizzle, and I was excited by the unevenness of the cobblestone, how I tripped at almost every step, how loud the automobiles sounded when they approached   The woman at the counter of the boulangerie asked if I wanted the whole loaf or the half, she directed the question to me as if she knew I would pay, as I often do I was surprised by her immediate knowledge of us, and by the smell of the dough rising just out of sight, which reminded me of my father’s calloused hands, how they could be violent but also subtle He used them to make gnocchi in our small kitchen   I did not understand her French, so she made wide shapes with her large palm, and then I understood but could not decide between the two choices, whole, half, you did not make eye contact to help me, so I told her yes, oui, the whole loaf, and made the

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

feature

Issue No. 2

Lauren Elkin

feature

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...

READ NEXT

poetry

Issue No. 13

Morning, Noon & Night

Claire-Louise Bennett

poetry

Issue No. 13

Sometimes a banana with coffee is nice. It ought not to be too ripe – in fact there should...

feature

Issue No. 2

The End of Francophonie: The Politics of French Literature

Lauren Elkin

feature

Issue No. 2

I. We were a couple of minutes late for the panel we’d hoped to attend. The doors were closed...

Interview

November 2011

Interview with Margaret Jull Costa

Sam Gordon

Interview

November 2011

On first impressions, this interview with Margaret Jull Costa, happening as it did – for the most part –...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required