Friday Reads: April 2015

April 3, 2015 Reviews

By JULIA LICHTBLAU, CYNTHIA HOGUE, KELLY FORDON, ILAN STAVANS, HELEN HOOPER, OLIVIA WOLFGANG-SMITH

This month’s books are full of surprises, for their characters and their readers. Whether it’s a world of whimsy, fantasy, or magic(al realism), or else a microcosm of grief either private (a family home) or public (a busy airport), we’re along for the ride as imagined worlds both playful and harrowing rise and fall on these pages.

Recommended:

Play for Me by Céline Keating, The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog by Alicia Ostriker, Munich Airport by Greg Baxter, Where the Bird Sings Best by Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann

Talmudic Lesson: God’s Smile

November 1, 2014 Essays, Issue 08, Issue 08 Essays

By ILAN STAVANS

There is one story that has always held a strange allure for me. It appears in Genesis 25:19 to 28:9 and is about Jacob’s theft of Esau’s birthright. Every time I read it, I feel haunted. In old age, a blind Isaac asks Esau, his oldest son, to visit him. He makes it understood that the end is near and asks Esau to gather food from the field and bring it back so he might be able to bless him.

Ode to the Coastal Flowers/ Oda a Las Flores de la Costa

May 1, 2013 Issue 05, Issue 05 Poetry, Poetry, Translation

By PABLO NERUDA

The Isla Negra wildflowers
are blooming,
they have no names, some
seem like sand crocuses,
others
illuminate
the ground with yellow lighting.

“The Last Nail in the Coffin”: Ilan Stavans Interviews John Sayles

December 5, 2011 Interviews

“Not just a place, but a place in its time, has a character. That character affects who people are. In a movie it certainly affects the way that you shoot.”

Today we are thrilled to feature an original, exclusive interview between The Common contributor Ilan Stavans and filmmaker and writer John Sayles. Stavans and Sayles discuss the differences between fiction writing and filmmaking, the challenges and comfort of writing historical fiction, and the importance of place in both book and movies. Sayles recently published A Moment in the Sun (McSweeney’s, 2011) and directed the newly released Amigo (Variance Films, 2011).

El mundo al revés/The World Upside Down

November 1, 2011 Fiction, Issue 02, Issue 02 Fiction

By ILAN STAVANS and TERESA VILLEGAS

SACA LA PATA/THE REVERSAL

Un pájaro puso a su dueño en una jaula. “Nuestros papeles se han invertido”, dijo el pájaro. “¡Quiero que cantes!” El dueño se quejó: “Pero yo no sé cantar”. “No importa”, gritó el pájaro. El dueño silbó pero claramente no tenía ningún ritmo. “Prefiero que bailes ante mí”. El dueño bailó sin ninguna gracia. El pájaro se sintió desilusionado. “De cualquier manera te mantendré en la jaula”. Sin embargo, una hora más tarde el pájaro estaba del todo aburrido. “No me había dado cuenta que tener una mascota es como estar en la cárcel. En la medida que controlamos a los demás ellos también nos controlan a nosotros”.

All posts tagged: Ilan Stavans

Friday Reads: April 2015

Talmudic Lesson: God’s Smile

Ode to the Coastal Flowers/ Oda a Las Flores de la Costa

“The Last Nail in the Coffin”: Ilan Stavans Interviews John Sayles

El mundo al revés/The World Upside Down

SACA LA PATA/THE REVERSAL

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