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The ‘Voltaire of the Arabs’ Is Beloved in France, but Imprisoned in Algeria

A renowned Franco-Algerian writer’s detention in Algeria has cast in stark relief the challenges that France faces in protecting writers who criticize Islam and authoritarian governments. The Nov. 16 arrest of Boualem Sansal, who some call “the Voltaire of the Arab people,” points to the limits of France’s leverage with its former colony, as French officials seek Mr. Sansal’s release. France has long held up its literary tradition as a space where freedom of expression can thrive. But Mr. Sansal’s arrest has shown that its protections can only go so far, especially for Franco-Algerian writers who carry the weight of the two countries’ complex, 132-year-long colonial past. Read more

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New Exhibition Features Imaginary Books

The poems of Sappho, Dylan Thomas’s abandoned manuscript Llareggub, the nested books from Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night, a Traveler – all are lost to time or limited to fiction. That they are seen in our world at all is thanks to Reid Byers, the creator and curator of the Imaginary Books collection, who imagined what these books might look like, should we be able to perceive them. Read more

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Films, Books and Artwork Entering the Public Domain in 2025

Examples of important literary works entering the public domain include Ernest Hemingway’s novel A Farewell to Arms, William Seabrook’s novel The Magic Island (the first book to introduce the concept of a zombie). Ellery Queen’s detective novel The Roman Hat Mystery, Margery Allingham detective novel The Crime at Black Dudley, the first English translation of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz in its original German, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel Pather Panchali in its original Bengali, Lynd Ward’s wordless novel Gods’ Man, William Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury, Dashiell Hammett’s novel Red Harvest, Edgar Rice Burroughs’s novel Tarzan and the Lost Empire, Ruth Plumly Thompson’s novel Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, Bertrand Russell’s book Marriage and Morals, Patrick Hamilton’s play Rope, A. A. Milne’s play Toad of Toad Hall, Virginia Woolf’s essay A Room of One’s Own, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s essay Some Remarks on Logical Form and the first part of the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (full in public domain by 2029). Read more

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The Best Book Covers of 2024

If most book cover designs are conceived as quick-to-metabolize marketing tools, a great one can make the reader do a double take in slow motion. A good first impression is, of course, the goal: to elicit curiosity and excitement before you’ve even picked the book off a shelf. But a great cover can fortify itself in our consciousness, resonating more deeply as we absorb the text within, ideally prompting a second impression after we finish reading. Read more

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‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ Premiers on Netflix

Welcome to Macondo, the mythical town that began with twenty houses on the bank of a river, where magical realism came to life and the Buendía family began their story. A story about the adversities of impossible loves, confrontations with a past that follows their footsteps and a curse that condemns them. Based on the masterpiece of Gabriel García Márquez comes One Hundred Years of Solitude, the series. Watch trailer

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The Artist Who Remembered Everything

This book review is a Trojan horse. Ostensibly it concerns a collection of letters titled “Love, Joe,” written by the downtown artist and writer Joe Brainard (1941-94) to friends including the poets John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman and James Schuyler. Before we get to those letters, a historical wrong must be righted. Next year is the 55th anniversary of the publication of Brainard’s experimental memoir, “I Remember.” I hadn’t read it until I picked it up in preparation to write this piece. Now I consider it one of the best books I know. Read more

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‘A Sand County Almanac’ Remains an Environmental Classic at 75

Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) is often described as the father of environmental ethics. His seminal book, “A Sand County Almanac,” was first published 75 years ago and remains a foundational text in nature writing. Still in print, it’s a classic in the classroom and, as Barbara Kingsolver has written, “the manifesto of a movement.” It is full of memorable, finely observed writing and is a landmark in American philosophical thought. Read more

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