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91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK translator of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel, The Inseparables (Vintage).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

How imagination remembers is twofold, an enfolded act of greed and ingenuity I believe these impulses to be linked in a narrative sense Imagination is always greedy, never sated, or full, with the present Imagination informs the imagineer: I need more! Just as the belly of the compulsive eater must be filled, so imagination can never be stuffed Memory feeds famished imagination, but memory is a faulty mechanism: a selfish, subjective substance also requiring constant nourishment itself in order to function in any low state   Memory cannot be entrusted with conservation Conservation is a contrary motion moving backwards and forwards, pushing and pulling; forever the desire to move forwards, yet looking forever backwards to ensure it is going the right way, doing the right thing   What conservation requires is proof Conservation needs proof in order to be able to proceed with sureness   This proof is not easy to come by   Detailed systems of discovery and exposure need to be set in place in order to pinpoint such proof Proof is, of course, always contextual and may only be seen as certain if it may be compared with other, very similar things, or processes The definition of verisimilitude depends of course on what sort of proof is it you’re after   The proof of Palácio Pombal is evidenced in what is left behind I’m looking at the proof this was a palácio, not that it still is one I accept I’ve come here to experience closely, to try for clarity And what is called into question, rather what arises as a question from my observations is: How can I be sure?   I’ve carefully read the information I was sent about the Palácio I read it because I felt I should I’m trying to forget what I read I’m trying to forget history, in order to overwrite the fragmented, chronological proofs, kindly translated and supplied upon my request This request to Mariana emerged from my doubt rather than my curiosity We human creatures must find our match in scale   *** Naturally, Palácio Pombal

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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poetry

May 2011

Two Prose Poems From 'The Sacrifice of Abraham'

Alexander Nemser

poetry

May 2011

The Rabbis   As the purple light of evening descended, women sang blessings over silver candelabra, and a group...

fiction

January 2014

Leg over Leg

Ahmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

TR. Humphrey Davies

fiction

January 2014

First published in 1855, Leg over Leg recounts the life, from birth to middle age, of ‘the Fāriyāq,’ alter ego of...

poetry

May 2012

FINALLY RICH

Sam Riviere

poetry

May 2012

I got a job I got a job writing poems oh hi I never met you before going to...

 

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