Monday, April 20, 2026

‘After all the horrible things we’ve been through,’ he said to me, ‘if I die of cancer, it will make a bad story’: Siri Hustvedt on losing Paul Auster

Siri Hustvedt
Photo by Chris Buck

‘After all the horrible things we’ve been through,’ he said to me, ‘if I die of cancer, it will make a bad story’: Siri Hustvedt on losing Paul Auster

First there was the double tragedy that tore the family apart – then came a deadly diagnosis. The writer reflects on life after the death of her novelist husband

Siri Hustvedt
Sunday 19 April 2026

Iam alive. My husband, Paul Auster, is dead. He died on 30 April 2024, at 6.58pm here in the Brooklyn house where I am now writing these words. He was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in January 2023. But before that, in early November 2022, Paul had a CT scan in the emergency room at Mount Sinai West hospital. The radiologist spotted a mass in his right lung and noted it might be cancer.

Juan Carlos Onetti

Hell so feared

By Juan Carlos Onetti

The first letter, the first photograph, was delivered to him at the newspaper between midnight and closing. He was banging on the typewriter, a little hungry, a little sick from coffee and tobacco, dedicated with familiar pleasure to the march of the sentence and the compliant appearance of words. He was writing, “It is worth noting that the commissioners noticed nothing suspicious or even out of the ordinary in Play Boy’s crowning triumph, when he took full advantage of the wintry track and shot ahead like an arrow at the decisive moment,” when he saw the red hand stained with ink from Politics between his face and the typewriter, holding out the envelope.

Gabriel García Márquez
París, 1990
Photo by Ulf Andersen

Márquez overtakes Cervantes as most translated Spanish-language writer

This article is more than 3 years old

Author of One Hundred Years of Solitude tops list of those most translated into 10 languages this century ahead of Don Quixote creator

Lost Federico García Lorca verse discovered 93 years after it was written

Federico García Lorca

Lost Federico García Lorca verse discovered 93 years after it was written

Eight-line poem found on the back of a manuscript sheds light on Spanish poet’s preoccupation with time

Sam Jones in Madrid

Sat 18 Apr 2026 05.00 BST

A previously unknown verse attributed to Federico García Lorca has been discovered 93 years after the celebrated Spanish poet and playwright is believed to have jotted it on the back of one of his manuscripts.

‘Difficult love’: Spanish publisher reprints groundbreaking book of Lorca’s homoerotic sonnets

This article is more than 9 months old

Federico García Lorca’s poems were printed anonymously in 1983 after being hidden away by family for 50 years

Sam Jones in Madrid
Friday 13 June 2025

In the autumn of 1983, dozens of carefully chosen readers received an envelope containing a slim, red booklet of sonnets that had been locked away since they were written almost 50 years earlier by the most famous Spanish poet of the 20th century.

Federico García Lorca

Name of Federico García Lorca's lover emerges after 70 years

This article is more than 13 years old

Box of mementoes reveals that young art critic Juan Ramírez de Lucas had brief affair with Spanish poet

Giles Tremlette in Madrid

10 May 2012

The identity of the lover to whom Federico García Lorca wrote passionate verse in his final year has been a mystery ever since the poet's assassination during the Spanish civil war. But now, more than 70 years later, his name has finally emerged.

Paso del Norte by Juan Rulfo

PASO DEL NORTE
by Juan Rulfo

“I’m going away, father; so I came to tell you.”

“And where’re you going, if one may know?”

“I’m goin’ to El Norte.”

“Why there? Don’t you have your business here? Aren’t you into selling pigs?”

REMEMBER

by Juan Rulfo

Remember Urbano Gómez, Don Urbano’s son, Dimas’s grandson, the one who directed pastorelas, the Christmas plays, and who died reciting the “cursed angel complaint” during the time of influence. It’s been years since then, maybe fifteen. But you must remember him. Remember we used to call him “El Abuelo,” Grandfather, because his other son, Fidencio Gómez, had two very playful daughters: one dark and very short, who’d been given the mean nickname of “La Arremangada,” Stuck Up, and the other one who was towering and who had light blue eyes and who people even said wasn’t his and about whom you can’t say much more than she suffered from hiccups. Remember the commotion that broke out when we were in Mass and at the exact moment of the Elevation she had a hiccup attack, which sounded as if she were laughing and crying at the same time, until they took her outside and they gave her a bit of sugar water and then she calmed down. She ended up marrying Lucio Chico, the owner of the mescal bar that used to belong to Librado, up the river, where the Teóduloses’ linseed mill is.

Luvina

by Juan Rulfo

Of all the high ranges in the south, the one in Luvina is the highest and rockiest. It’s full of that gray stone from which they make lime, but in Luvina they don’t make lime from it nor do they put it to any good use. They call it crude stone there, and the incline that rises toward Luvina is called Crude Stone Hill. The wind and sun have taken care of breaking it down, so the earth around there is white and shining, as if it were bedewed with morning dew; though all this is just words, because in Luvina the days are as cold as the nights and the dew grows thick in the sky before it manages to reach the earth.

Luci Gutiérrez / The New Yorker

Luci Gutiérrez

(Barcelona, 1977)

THE NEW YORKER

Illustration by Quentin Blake

Michael Rosen's Sad Book

Wednesday 9 November 2016

During a recent visit to The National Museum of Wales we got to view the Quentin Blake Exhibition. This has been running from July 16th and goes through until November 20th and celebrates the wonderful work of the popular author and illustrator. The exhibition is free, as in entry to the museum itself, and is located upstairs. We enjoyed looking at the many works of Quentin Blake, discovering his various work tools, film footage of him working and exploring the artwork. In a large, open and bright area of the room was a long table with books illustrated by Quentin with paper and colouring pencils for visitors to try their hand at their own illustrations.

Biographies / Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen was born in 1981 in Winnipeg, Canada. He studied illustration in Oakville until 2005 and subsequently moved to Los Angeles where he worked as a designer and illustrator, among others on motion pictures like »City of Ember« (2008), »Coraline« (2009) and »Kung Fu Panda 2« (2011). He was also in charge of the music video for the U2-Song »I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight« (as art director) and for the BBC title sequence of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver (as designer).

Should the Bear Eat the Rabbit?

Josie Leavitt

September 29, 2011

It’s been out for just a few days and already there has been a lot of discussion at my store about Jon Klassen’s book, I Want My Hat Back. I need to go on record as saying I LOVE this book.

Jon Klassen / I Want my hat back

https://youtu.be/YigAUDPZXqc?feature=shared

I WANT MY HAT BACK
By Jon Klassen

https://youtu.be/YigAUDPZXqc

YOUTUBE

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Michael Rosen wins Hans Christian Andersen award

Michael Rosen in his studio in Wood Green, London.
Photograph: Karen Robinson

Michael Rosen wins Hans Christian Andersen award

The former children’s laureate missed the announcement of the award in Bologna due to post-Brexit passport rule changes

Rosie Peters-McDonald

Tue 14 Apr 2026

Michael Rosen, the poet and author known for books such as We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and Chocolate Cake, has won the 2026 Hans Christian Andersen award for writing in recognition of his lifelong contributions to children’s literature.

Don't mention the children by Michael Rosen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7DiGkQS2h8

Don't mention the children

by Michael Rosen

Don't mention the children.

Don't name the dead children.

The people must not know the names

of the dead children.

The names of the children must be hidden.

The children must be nameless.

The children must leave this world

having no names.

No one must know the names of

the dead children.

No one must say the names of the

dead children.

No one must even think that the children

have names.

People must understand that it would be dangerous

to know the names of the children.

The people must be protected from

knowing the names of the children.

The names of the children could spread

like wildfire.

The people would not be safe if they knew

the names of the children.

Don’t name the dead children.

Don’t remember the dead children.

Don’t think of the dead children.

Don’t say: ‘dead children’.

Michael Rosen / ‘I have sad thoughts every day. I try not to be overcome by them’

INTERVIEW

‘I have sad thoughts every day. I try not to be overcome by them’: Michael Rosen on coping with the death of his son

This article is more than 3 years old

He is much loved for his daffy humour, but poet Michael Rosen’s new memoir, Getting Better, is an arrestingly honest account of devastating loss. He talks to Alex Moshakis about feeling sad, and why he’s no longer ‘carrying an elephant’

Michael Rosen

‘I knew my son had gone’: Michael Rosen on the moment that changed his life – extract

This article is more than 3 years old

In this extract from his new book, Getting Better, the author and poet describes the death of his beloved teenage son, Eddie

Monday, April 20, 2026