Cynicism

Nabokov succinctly captures the two sides of cynicism–one jaded and pessimistic, the other selfish and contemptuous–in the person of the sadistic Axel Rex: On such occasions Rex could talk endlessly, indefatigably, inventing stories about non-existent ...

From Nabokov’s “Inspiration”

Here he selects a couple American stories that he adores and picks a particular passage filled with sine qua non inspiration: Examples are the stained-glass windows of knowledge. From a small number of A-plus stories ...

Richard Hughes: A High Wind in Jamaica

Once fully convinced of this astonishing fact, that she was now Emily Bas-Thornton (why she inserted the “now she did not know, for she certainly imagined no transmigrational nonsense of having been any one else ...

Machine Translation

Werfel, Zweig, Yesterday, Tomorrow

“The Invention of Morel”, Adolfo Bioy Casares

American Writers of the 1950′s