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91/92: notes on a Parisian commute (Semiotext(e)/Fugitives) and the UK translator of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel, The Inseparables (Vintage).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

[To be read aloud]   I want to begin – and I hope I don’t come across as autistic or anything like that (and I know I’m not supposed to say autistic, I know, I realised that as it was coming out, but I couldn’t stop it and I can’t unsay it so let’s just ignore it, can we?) – I want to begin by saying – and I don’t want to get bogged down with trying to find a way in (which is harder than you might imagine), we’ve got a lot to get through, so, but I want to begin by saying simply I want to begin by saying I want to begin   New paragraph Fresh start On   What I wanted to begin by saying was this: that I have always liked it best when you touch me by accident When you fall into me or brush past me or roll onto me in your sleep, to name but a few examples Motiveless contact Which is not of course to say I’ve never liked it when you’ve touched me on purpose That has its place But there’s a realm of experience – a realm of ecstasy – to which intentional contact allows, for me, no access I have always found a certain kind of intentionlessness – an intentionless act which nevertheless produces the desired outcome – extremely pleasurable Which is an admittedly unromantic way of putting it I’ve always liked it best when I’ve known there’s been no ulterior motive for physical conjunction Two unbidden bodies bound together in space: coming together, making contact, coming apart, unstained   Does this make sense? Would a concrete example help? Here’s a concrete example: imagine the scene: you’re going to put your hand to my cheek affectionately and, walking towards me, you trip over the cat – a cat who is at my feet, our cat – you stumble, your arm flies forwards and your hand, groping for support, it lands cupped on my cheek That your hand touches my

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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fiction

October 2013

Last Supper in Seduction City

Álvaro Enrigue

TR. Brendan Riley

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October 2013

 ‘. . . and the siege dissolved to peace, and the horsemen all rode down in sight of the...

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June 2017

Turksib

Lutz Seiler

TR. Alexander Booth

fiction

June 2017

The jolts of the tracks were stronger now and came at irregular intervals. With my arms outstretched, I held...

fiction

September 2015

The Afternoon

Wolfgang Hilbig

TR. Isabel Fargo Cole

fiction

September 2015

Nothing new on Bahnhofstrasse! — These are the first words to occur to me upon arrival. With the word...

 

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