Elizabeth Strout

Where to start with: Elizabeth Strout

This article is more than 10 months old

A guide to the Pulitzer-winning novelist’s tales of small-town life, family secrets, and fraught relationships

American author Elizabeth Strout has captured millions of readers’ imaginations with her small-town stories of ordinary people with rich inner lives. Her novels – often set in Maine, where she grew up – have won her a Pulitzer and got her shortlisted for the Booker and, this year, the Women’s prize for fiction. Joe Stone gives us a tour of her interconnected oeuvre.

 

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout review – readers will delight in these new characters

The Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton author branches out with the tale of a Massachusetts teacher haunted by trauma

Claire Adam

Monday 27 April 2026

The American author Elizabeth Stroutfamously persisted throughout years of rejection to publish her first novel when she was in her 40s, and the hard work has certainly paid off. She won a Pulitzer prize in 2009, and has been nominated multiple times for the Booker and Women’s prizes. The Things We Never Say is her 11th book.

Into the Light by Rachel Cusk

Illustration by Damien Cuypers

FICTION

Into the Light

by Rachel cusk

THE ARTIST B was married three times, two of them to the same man, though on the latter occasion his right leg was missing. In the years of their separation an accident had occurred that required the leg to be amputated. For social events he used a prosthetic limb that was awkward and uncomfortable to wear. It was at one of these that their second meeting, after fifteen years of absence, had taken place.

Junk by Jenny Erpenbeck

 

Illustration by Damien Cuypers

FICTION

Junk

by Jenny Erpenbeck

Translated by 

Kurt Beals

OF COURSE IT’S NICE when the eye can be at peace, when it doesn’t get tangled up in knickknacks, when the drawers open silently and then close again as if by magic. It’s nice to have bare tables where no dust falls, only light. It’s nice when everything is made of glass and you can see through it, because nothing else is there. Emptiness is nice. Who doesn’t like to make a purchase if the salesman places a single pair of trousers on a frosted glass countertop lit from below? Then those trousers are the last thing on earth that casts a shadow, and the counter with its bluish shimmer turns out to be an altar that extends from Berlin to Vienna, from Vienna to Tokyo, from Tokyo to New York, and from New York perhaps to heaven or hell, gradually narrowing as it disappears from view.

Crossings by Bryan Washington

 

Illustration by Damien Cuypers

FICTION

Crossings

by Bryan Washington

FIRST I SPOT HIM holding hands with his husband. 

I’d have caught him anyway. PDA is so rare in broad daylight in Tokyo, let alone between men. He’s grown a beard. Clipped the hair on his head. And also, he’s more muscular than when we were together, like some kind of porn-star blow-up doll. 

Connie Converse during Christmas 1955, in Schenectady, in New York.SISTEMA NACIONAL DE PERSONAS DESAPARECIDAS DE ESTADOS UNIDOS

The mysterious life of Connie Converse, the brilliant singer who was ignored — and then vanished 

A reissue brings back the recordings of an artist who reached Greenwich Village before Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, only to disappear shortly after turning 50

Bruce Dickinson at an Iron Maiden concert in 1983. On the left, guitarist Dave Murray and bassist Steve Harris.MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES (GETTY IMAGES)

Iron Maiden: The heavy metal band that still drives audiences wild 50 years later

The legendary metal band is celebrating half a century at the height of their popularity, and has also just released the documentary ‘Burning Ambition’

Mark Rothko's painting 'Browns and Blacks in Red' was auctioned this Thursday at Sotheby's in New York.JOHN NACION (GETTY IMAGES)

The auction of two Rothkos and a De Kooning injects optimism into New York Art Week

The painting ‘Brown and Blacks in Reds’ sold for $86 million, close to the record for the Latvian-born American painter. Gallery owners at the Tefaf art fair highlighted the strong investor appetite despite the economic uncertainty surrounding the Iran war

Çubuklu Silos l Digital Art Museum, photo: İBB Library

Blending past and present: Çubuklu Silos' Digital Art Museum

Preserving heritage through contemporary repurposing and creating relevance against neglect

13 FEBRUARY 2025, 

IDIL BURKUTOGLU

Contemporary interventions to historical sites offer a vibrant approach to preserving and enhancing cultural heritage. These initiatives blend modern design and technology with historic architecture to create spaces that are both practical and respectful of their historical roots. Incorporating elements like new materials, creative lighting, and interactive features revitalizes landmarks that might otherwise be overlooked, making them more engaging and relevant today. When executed with care, these updates connect the past with the present, providing new perspectives on historical sites and deepening our appreciation of cultural heritage.

 

Onur Mansız's solo exhibition "era" in Art On Istanbul, 2023, photo credit: Kayhan Kaygusuz

Onur Mansız’s exploration of identity and existence

A conversation with the Turkish artist about his hyperrealistic works and their role in questioning existence and subjectivity

13 JANUARY 2025, 

IDIL BURKUTOGLU

Onur Mansız is a Turkish artist who situates the human body at the core of his artistic inquiry, using it as a lens through which to explore themes of identity, existence, and subjectivity. His hyperrealistic oil paintings present the body in an ambiguous state—neither fully clothed nor entirely naked—through the superimposition of imagery that transforms the physical form into a site for the exploration of deeper philosophical and existential questions. The deliberate isolation of these figures against monochromatic backgrounds serves to detach them from specific contexts, thereby emphasizing their role in confronting universal issues of self-realization and identity. Through this conversation, we seek to gain insight into his creative process and the intellectual and existential dimensions that underpin his art.

 

Interior, Basilica Cistern, Istanbul, Turkey

Basilica Cistern Museum: reviving Istanbul's ancient marvel

Advanced lighting design and renovation transforms the Basilica Cistern’s ambiance and highlights its architectural heritage

13 DECEMBER 2024, 

IDIL BURKUTOGLU

The Basilica Cistern Museum is a significant cultural landmark in Istanbul, built by Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century. It is the largest enclosed cistern in the city, covering 10,000 square meters and capable of holding 80,000 tons of water. Historically, the cistern supplied water to the Great Palace and nearby structures. It features 336 columns, most of which are marble, and was originally waterproofed with thick Khorasan mortar. After the Ottoman conquest in 1453, it served various purposes, including supplying water to the Topkapı Palace and later becoming a part of the local community. Rediscovered in the mid-16th century by French naturalist Petrus Gyllius, the cistern has been the subject of significant restorations, including the uncovering of Medusa head columns during a major renovation in the 1980s. These columns are notable examples of Roman sculpture and are linked to Greek mythology.

Luci Gutiérrez / The New Yorker

Luci Gutiérrez 

(Barcelona, 1977)

THE NEW YORKER

The Kings and Queens of Notting Dale by Roy Williams

 

John Constable, Fire in London, Seen from Hampstead, ca. 1826. Courtesy Yale Center for British Art

DRAMA

The Kings and Queens of Notting Dale

An excerpt and introduction

By Roy Williams

AFTER A FIRE BROKE OUT at Grenfell Tower, West London, in the early morning hours of June 14, 2017, killing seventy-two people, the playwright Roy Williams knew he would write about the tragedy. In the following journal entry, he contemplates the lives lost and notices again the power of community in the neighborhood where the fire burned: North Kensington, a part of London that has grappled with racial injustice, senseless violence, and displacement through the decades. This entry is reflective, too, of themes in Williams’s forthcoming play, The Kings and Queens of Notting Dale, a multigenerational drama that follows a number of working-class families from the 1950s through the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. His journal entry and an excerpt of the play are printed here for the first time.

—THE EDITORS

Process by Katherine Dunn

Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, The Reverse of a Framed Painting, 1670. Public Domain

FICTION

Process

by Katherine Dunn

THE MUSTY SILENCE of his childhood bred in Joseph Jaikins a susceptibility to the propaganda of solitude. He had been orphaned horribly and early and reared by a decent elderly aunt. His restlessness was quiet, and his school years resigned him to frustration. At the age of eighteen, he was courteous but shy, and dutiful without ambition.

Man Overboard by Jean McGarry

 

FICTION

Man Overboard

Jean McGarry

THERE CAME A DAY WHEN, DAMN IT, he just couldn’t take any more. He’d offered the pearl-skinned girl a home, a little gal of her own, and upkeep. She’d quit her job, got as fat as she could, and outsmarted him in every way. Entering his own clean and decorated house, he felt skinned and gnawed, burnt by judgment, hobbled in his wants, urges, and habits by the scorn, digs, cracks, jabs, and smack-downs.

I Can See Your House from Here by Jerry McGarry

Cat Catching a Bird by Pablo Picasso, 1939.

FICTION

I Can See Your House from Here

by Jean McGarry

DELIA LIVED ON THE SECOND FLOOR of Eldorado Street. She’d had it all to herself since the day Charlie tripped on the cat and bled to death, his nose broken, face-down on the pantry floor, where she found him on Ash Wednesday. There was still a stain on the linoleum, a grid of black and white squares. The stain was now brown, but had started as almost a pink foam. She’d lifted his head, but refused to look at the sopping wet and foaming eyes, nose, and mouth. “Poor old Chas,” she said, dropping the head and calling the police. An ambulance followed the patrol car, and Charlie Abernathy was carted away in his bathrobe and slippers. He was in the process of fixing himself a short one before breakfast and Delia’s return from the 8 o’clock mass.

Save the Pedestals by Ivan Vladislavić

Adapted from Léon Laroche, Three plinths with drapes, ca. 1885–95. Courtesy Rijksmuseum.

FICTION

Save the Pedestals

Ivan Vladislavić

SHE DREAMS: THE EMPTY PEDESTAL is made of glass and resting in it like bones in a reliquary are the names of the statue’s children.

Comrade A had the habit of rapping on the toes of his boots with his cane as he walked. They were safety boots of a kind you can’t buy any more, with heat-resistant soles and steel toecaps from which the rubber tip of the cane rebounded. This drumbeat irritated Ma Z, but she had known Comrade A long enough to hold her tongue. He was touchy about the boots, which he’d been wearing since his days as a shop steward in the Metalworkers’ Union. He didn’t care that they were down at the heel and looked odd with a suit, and he would give anyone who dared to comment a lecture on the hazards of the shop floor. These boots had saved his feet more than once when a metal bar slipped off the rollers in the factory. You could still see the dents. He was touchy about the walking stick too, although he had come by that more recently.

 

Spazio HASITA gallery, incubator, nest in Milano dedicated to art, design, innovation, ideas, Milan, Italy, photo by İdil Burkutoğlu

A conversation with Haluk Terzioğlu

Exploring the fusion of tradition and innovation in Milan's cultural landscape and beyond

13 OCTOBER 2024, 

IDIL BURKUTOGLU

I had the opportunity to meet with Haluk Terzioğlu, one of the founders of Spazio Hasita alongside Simone Innocenti, which is situated in Milan's NOLO district. The gallery, which combines modernism and tradition, is an example of the city's cultural development, which has been established since June 2023. Since then, Spazio Hasita has hosted artists such as Chiara Colombo, Sefa Çatuk, Francesco Damiani, Angelo Marcuccio, Alan Maglio, and Alessandro Pongan. Set in a meticulously renovated location, its direction mixes contemporary innovative thinking with Milan's artistic, creative, industrial, and cultural legacy. After discussing his unique approach to gallery administration and vision, Haluk Terzioğlu was open to sharing his story and what lies ahead for Spazio Hasita.