The little white attic

Nabokov says in Strong Opinions :  “The word “genius” is passed around rather generously, isn’t it? At least in English, because its Russian...

When people talk about Chekhov, they usually talk about him as a subtle writer, depicting with sensitivity and compassion ordinary people’s ...

As a little break from Cervantes’s Exemplary Novels , I’ve been reading Chekhov (who can be a better companion when one’s got the morbs?).  ...

It is no surprise that the country I know the best in literature is Britain. The 19th century especially: from Jane Austen, Charles Dickens,...

I read the Edith Grossman translation, which includes all 12 tales/ novellas. 1/ “The Novel of the Little Gypsy Girl”:  This one is all righ...

The art vs artist subject pops up again after the Alice Munro news—on one side are people who can no longer read Alice Munro, condemning her...

Originally Amar después de la Muerte , also known in English as To Love Beyond Death . I read the translation by Roy Campbell, in The Class...

I can hear you asking “Cervantes? Miguel de Cervantes?”. Yep, that’s him, the author of Don Quixote .  But first, context. The Siege of Numa...

Originally El mejor alcalde, el rey , it is another of Lope de Vega’s famous plays. I read the 1936 translation by John Garrett Underhill. ...

1/ In Don Quixote: An Introductory Essay in Psychology (which is rather good), Salvador de Madariaga writes:  “Don Quixote, Sancho, Don Jua...