Essays

Essays

Toni Morrison’s Native Figures

A new reading of race in her novels
Namwali Serpell
Folio

How LLMs Set My Fiction Free

Writing no longer felt like experimenting. AI made it fun again.
Christopher Sorrentino
Folio

My AI Boyfriend

A cynic enters the data pool
Lauren Oyler
Folio

Chasing Alice

The life and death of a chatbot
Sheila Heti
Folio

Donna Haraway’s Utopian Promise

We were supposed to become feminist cyborgs. Instead, we got ChatGPT.
Meghan O’Gieblyn
Folio

Jagged Intelligence

The dangerous unknowns at the heart of LLMs
Melanie Mitchell

Browse

Essays

From the Archives

On Some Functions of Literature

Umberto Eco,
translated by Martin McLaughlin
October 1, 2004
Graphic with loaves of bread and water bottles on a black and orange background. Illustration by Laura Padilla Castellanos
Essays

Loaf or Hot-Water Bottle

Closely Translating Proust
Lydia Davis
April 1, 2004
From the Archives

The Writer’s Audience

Wallace Stegner
January 1, 2003
From the Archives

Letter to a Young Novelist

Mario Vargas Llosa,
translated by Natasha Wimmer
July 1, 2002
From the Archives

Lincoln and Whitman as Representative Americans

David Bromwich
April 1, 2002
From the Archives

Ibsen the Pioneer

Stella Adler
April 1, 1999
From the Archives

The Mask of Art

Edmund White
April 1, 1999
From the Archives

An Open Book

Edmund White
July 1, 1997
From the Archives

Secret Maps

Holly Wright's Photographs of Hands
Charles Simic
October 1, 1996
From the Archives

The Burning Book: Genet and Cocteau

Edmund White
October 1, 1993