Literature: Related Content
![The Wall Street Journal](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/WSJ_WallStreetJournal_logo_1200x750_0.jpg?itok=w-yJpMpg)
The Wall Street Journal profiles Ann Goldstein '71, who translated works by Elena Ferrante, Jhumpa Lahiri and Primo Levi, and has become a rare celebrity among translators.
![Brooke Allen's Yours in Haste and Adoration](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/AllenBrooke_SouthernTerry_YoursinHasteandAdoration_1200x750px.jpg?itok=7hKOMYBF)
Faculty member Brooke Allen's biography of Benazir Bhutto, Favored Daughter, is hailed by Kirkus as "a compelling look at Bhutto’s tumultuous life and Pakistan’s roiling history," while the New York Times describes her contributions to Yours in Haste and Adoration: Selected Letters of Terry Southern, as "excellent and often droll."
![Judith Butler's 'Notes Toward A Performative Theory Of Assembly'](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/ButlerJudith_NotesTowardAPerformativeTheoryOfAssembly_600x450.jpg?itok=PtXACbB0)
The Times Higher Education supplement reviewed Judith Butler's Notes Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly on December 10. According to the review, Butler's mediations on recent mass protests around the world make her work "Everything a book about our planet in the 21st century should be."
![Bennington Alumni on USA Today's "Must Read" List](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/USAtoday_logo_1200x750.jpg?itok=4EvtRfKc)
Donna Tartt ’86 and Bret Easton Ellis ’86 were included USA Today's must-read list of 10 novels by college-aged writers.
![The Millions logo](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/MM_TheMillions_logo_600x450.jpg?itok=MnLDVGPV)
Bruna Dantas Lobato '15 writes about the Juan Goytisolo's 1970 novel in verse, Count Julian, in The Millions, and about a new translation of Ferreira Gullar's Dirty Poem in Asymptote Journal.
Read the poem in the Asymptote Journal.
![The Best American Short Stories](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/BestAmericanShortStories2015_600x450.jpg?itok=6KjDkYZ-)
"Strange Days” by MFA in Writing Director Sven Birkerts and "Vision" by Tiffany Briere MFA '11 were included in The Best American Essays 2015. “The Siege at Whale Cay,” by Assistant Director Megan Mayhew Bergman MFA ’10, was included in The Best American Short Stories 2015.
![Literary Bennington](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/LiteraryBennington_1200x750.jpg?itok=uvxkA2EV)
On October 2015, students in a course taught by faculty member Benjamin Anastas launched a blog tracing Bennington’s outsized impact on the world of literature and asking what accounts for it. Literary Bennington features author interviews, short pieces of journalism and reviews, and coverage of literary events on campus.
![Summer Brennan's The Oyster War](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/BrennanSummer_TheOysterWar_600x450.jpg?itok=GoXgX2OJ)
The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America, the debut book by Summer Brennan ’01, has been widely reviewed since its publication in August 2015.
![Safiya Sinclair Wins Boston Review 2015 Poetry Contest](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/SinclairSafiya_600x450.jpg?itok=koz9iZWG)
Safiya Sinclair '10 has won the Boston Review's 2015 Poetry Contest. In introducing the winner, Cathy Park Hong writes "Sinclair collages a sensual lexicon, creating speech acts that are racialized assemblages. Her language is distinctive, assured, and a marvel to read."
![Sven Birkert's New Book Changing the Subject Garnering Attention](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/BirkertsSven_Changing%20the%20Subject.jpg?itok=tMcSflqZ)
A new book by Sven Birkerts, director of the MFA in Writing Program at Bennington College, is receiving warm attention. Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age, published by Grey Wolf Press, which focuses on the effect of digital culture on our ability to engage with our world, and the fate of writing in such a context, has been reviewed in the Chronicle for Higher Education, New Republic, and the New York Times Book Review.
![Image of Safiya Sinclair](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/SinclairSafiya_600x450_0.jpg?itok=oMzwS_FW)
Safiya Sinclair '10 has been awarded the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, given by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, for her manuscript, Cannibal. Sinclair is currently pursuing a PhD in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California, where she is a Dornsife Doctoral Fellow.
![Shirley Jackson's Let Me Tell You](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/JacksonShirley_LetMeTellYou_600x450.jpg?itok=YaBPDy8m)
Prashansa Taneja '16 has a review of Shirley Jackson's Let Me Tell You in The Millions, an online magazine offering coverage on books, arts, and culture.
![Image of Alan Cheuse](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/CheuseAlan_600x450.jpg?itok=52I8g39O)
Alan Cheuse, the novelist, teacher and longtime literary commentator for NPR, has died at the age of 75.
![Local Girl's Book Cover](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/local_girls300x225.jpg?itok=cO_D12Ip)
Caroline Zancan MFAW '14, author of Local Girls, links her debut novel to her time at Bennington in an interview with Melville House.
![Image of Michael Dumanis](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/DumanisMichael_600x450.jpg?itok=F7XKSRMc)
In an essay in Literary Hub, faculty member Michael Dumanis discusses writing poetry "animated by American English and frequently set in a recognizably American landscape, yet wholly rooted in Russian language and tradition, composed with a distinctly Russian ear and what I think is a distinctly Soviet, ex-Soviet, or would-be-Soviet sensibility".
![Wunderlich Interviewed](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Screen%20Shot%202016-07-26%20at%202.48.31%20PM.png?itok=EDTLYagS)
Literature faculty member Mark Wunderlich, whose recent poetry collection, The Earth Avails, won the 2015 Rilke Prize, is interviewed in the current issue of The American Literary Journal. His poem "The Corn Baby" was published in the May 15 New York Times Magazine.
![Image of Mark Wunderlich](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/WunderlichMark_600x450.jpg?itok=YkDRf91N)
Faculty member Mark Wunderlich recently won the 2015 University of North Texas’ Rilke Prize for his latest collection, The Earth Avails. The $10,000 prize recognizes a book that “demonstrates exceptional artistry and vision.” Mark was also a finalist for the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His recent poem, "My Night with Jeffrey Dahmer,"recounts in chilling detail his encounter with infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer at a bar in Madison, Wisconsin.
![Lethem in NYT](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Screen%20Shot%202016-07-26%20at%202.30.05%20PM.png?itok=ObYQClka)
Lucky Alan and Other Stories, the latest collection from Jonathan Lethem ’86, has been reviewed widely and warmly since its publication in February. The New York Times calls him “the king of sentences,” while the Guardian says the best stories offer a daring and affecting connection to the real.
![Anastas](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/7741983276_15f5a95b72_o.jpg?itok=sVmLADFk)
Faculty member Benjamin Anastas' essay, "Questions for My Grandfather’s Psychiatrist," was published in the The New York Times as part of the paper's ongoing series about psychotherapy.
![Malamud honored by PEN/Faulkner](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/malamud.jpg?itok=bx5-7oiN)
Hundreds of literary fans and notables gathered in Washington D.C. last week for a celebration of what would have been longtime former faculty member Bernard Malamud's 100th year.
![Megan Mayhew Bergman's Almost Famous Women](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/BergmanMayhewMegan_AlmostFamousWomen_600x450.jpg?itok=yqp7A3vm)
MFA alumna Megan Mayhew Bergman's forthcoming collection of stories, Almost Famous Women, received a starred review from Kirkus, and is an Indie Next Pick for winter. Due out in January, Academy Award-winning actress Anjelica Huston called it "heartbreaking and lovely".
![Katy Simpson Smith's 'The Story of Land and Sea'](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/SmithKatySimpson_TheStoryOfLandAndSea_600x450.jpg?itok=bmRKvWmT)
Katy Simpson Smith MFA ’13's new novel, The Story of Land and Sea, is “not only among the most assured debut novels in recent memory,” raved a Vogue magazine review, but also “heralds the birth of a major new talent.”
![Wiseman Published in LA B.R.](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/LARB%20logo%20.jpg?itok=Cg2UHLID)
Sasha Wiseman '15 reviewed Jenny Offill's new novel, Dept. of Speculation, in the the Los Angeles Review of Books. Read the review.
![Anastas published in NYT Mag](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/anastas.jpg?itok=y_aFaZ9x)
Read literature faculty member Benjamin Anastas’ “The Breakup List” in the June 13 New York Times Magazine.
![The Pulitzer Prize](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/PulitzerPrize_600x450.jpg?itok=Wh0MDkOd)
Two alumnae are among the six Pulitzer Prize winners for literature this year. Donna Tartt '86 won in the category of fiction for her novel The Goldfinch, while Megan Marshall '75 won for her biography Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.
![Feitlowitz's translation of Salvador Novo's Autobiography](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/FeitlowitzMarguerite_SalvadorNovo_PillarOfSalt_600x450.jpg?itok=NRapRRf5)
Literature faculty member Marguerite Feitlowitz’s translated autobiography of Mexican writer Salvador Novo, which includes 19 translated sonnets, recounts Novo's coming-of-age amidst the violent Mexican Revolution and offers a history of his passions—both literary and otherwise. Published this spring by University of Texas Press, Pillar of Salt is "nothing short of beautiful," wrote critic Micah McCrary in his review.
![Plain China](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/Bennington_PlainChina_logo_600x450_1.jpg?itok=lcxuYr6E)
Bennington student editors have released the fifth volume of plain china, the first and only literary anthology showcasing the best undergraduate writing from across the country.
![Image of Doug Bauer](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/BauerDouglas_600x450_0.jpg?itok=kp9XSWfz)
Literature faculty member Doug Bauer has won the 2014 PEN New England Award for nonfiction for his latest book, What Happens Next? Matters of Life and Death. Bauer’s poignant collection of essays weaves the stories of his own and his parents’ lives, the meals they ate, the work and rewards and regrets that defined them, and the inevitable betrayal by their bodies as they aged.
![Image of Luke Mogelson](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/MogelsonLuke_600x450.jpg?itok=2FHZ7_c4)
Alumnus Luke Mogelson’s short story To the Lake was published in the spring 2014 issue of The Paris Review. Mogelson, a freelance journalist and recipient of Stanford University’s prestigious Stegner Fellowship, is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine and has been published in The New Yorker, GQ, The New Republic, and The Nation, among others.
![Image of Oceana Wilson](/sites/default/files/styles/alumni_story_300x225/public/sources/stories/WilsonOceana_600x450.jpg?itok=0-B4sh7a)
Sometimes, you just want a guaranteed good read. When you’re far from home, adventuring in a new place—as Bennington students will be over Field Work Term—that may be especially true. Fortunately for them, director of library and information services Oceana Wilson has it covered. A few years ago, she began a tradition with Bennington faculty, of "looking for winter reading recommendations for students—the kind of books you would recommend to a friend.”