Longform

  • Podcast
  • Best Of
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
    • 2012
  • Archive

    • Sections
    • Publications
    • Writers
    • Tags
  • Random Article
  • Contact

    • podcast@longform.org

Tags

Novelist

Best Article

The Storyteller

On the writer W.G. Sebald.

Ben Lerner New York Review of Books Oct 2021 Permalink

Arts

How to Write Fiction When the Planet Is Falling Apart

A profile of Jenny Offill, whose latest novel addresses climate collapse.

Read more

Parul Sehgal on the Longform Podcast

Parul Sehgal New York Times Magazine Feb 2020 20min Permalink

Bret Easton Ellis Thinks You're Overreacting to Donald Trump

An interview with the novelist.

Isaac Chotiner New Yorker Apr 2019 10min Permalink

The Lost Giant of American Literature

A major black novelist made a remarkable début. How did he disappear?

Kathryn Schulz New Yorker Jan 2018 Permalink

World

Inside the Strange Saga of a Cairo Novelist Imprisoned for Obscenity

Ahmed Naji’s novel was not overtly political, but the “protagonist performs cunnilingus, rolls hash joints and gulps from bottles of vodka” which led a lawyer to press charges against him for causing a fluctuation in his blood pressure when the novel was excerpted in a Cairo newspaper, even though it had been approved by censors.

Jonathan Guyer Rolling Stone Feb 2017 20min Permalink

John Edgar Wideman Against the World

Late in a career marked by both triumph and tragedy, the author has written a new book exploring the unsettling case of Emmett Till’s father — and the isolation of black men in America.

Thomas Chatterton Williams New York Times Magazine Jan 2017 20min Permalink

Secrets of a Secret Agent

Jason Matthews worked at the CIA for more than 30 years. Then he started writing spy novels.

Josh Eells Men’s Journal Sep 2015 20min Permalink

Arts

The Mystery of Marsha Mehran

The best-selling young novelist lay dead in a trash-strewn cottage on Ireland’s rugged coast for over a week before she was discovered.

Cahal Milmo The Independent Jan 2015 10min Permalink

Arts

You Are Now Entering the Demented Kingdom of William T. Vollmann

A profile of author William T. Vollmann.

Tom Bissell The New Republic Jul 2014 30min Permalink

Arts

Inheritance

On Edward St. Aubyn’s autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels.

Ian Parker New Yorker May 2014 50min Permalink

Arts

Peter Matthiessen’s Homegoing

Stolen time with the writer as he neared the end.

Jeff Himmelman New York Times Magazine Apr 2014 20min Permalink

Arts

Eat, Pray, Love, Get Rich, Write a Novel No One Expects

A profile of Elizabeth Gilbert, whose bestselling memoir may have sunk her literary career.

Steve Almond New York Times Magazine Sep 2013 20min Permalink

Arts History

The Passion of Lew Wallace

How a disgraced Civil War general became one of the best-selling novelists in American history.

John Swansburg Slate Mar 2013 45min Permalink

Arts

Paperback Writer

A profile of thriller writer Harlan Coben and what it takes to succeed as a novelist even when the literary establishment doesn’t acknowledge your existence.

Eric Koningsberg The Atlantic Jul 2007 30min Permalink

World

Securitate In All But Name

A Romanian-German novelist on being pursued by Ceaucescu’s secret police.

Herta Müller Die Zeit Aug 2009 25min Permalink

Arts

The World of Charles Dickens, Complete With Pizza Hut

On literary tourism:

Dickens World, in other words, sounded less like a viable business than it did a mockumentary, or a George Saunders short story, or the thought experiment of a radical Marxist seeking to expose the terminal bankruptcy at the heart of consumerism. And yet it was real.

Sam Anderson New York Times Magazine Feb 2012 Permalink

Arts World

The Power of Gabriel García Márquez

On Gabo and his complicated role in the country of his birth, Colombia.

Jon Lee Anderson New Yorker Sep 1999 50min Permalink

Arts

The Last Lion

A visit with the novelist Jim Harrison.

Tom Bissell Outside Sep 2011 20min Permalink