‘Sharing a bed with Edmund White’
A personal tribute to the late American writer Edmund White, for the New Statesman.
‘How a little-known French literary critic became a bellweather for the US right’
An essay for the Financial Times about the French thinker René Girard, and his influence on the American right.
An essay on Joseph Hillel’s film At All Kosts, about a theatre festival in Haiti continuing amid the ongoing political unrest, written for the Open City documentary festival.
‘Why is the Right Obsessed with Epic Poetry?’
An essay for The Nation on the American right and their use of epic literature.
For the Financial Times, an essay about the real gardens that inspired Paradise Lost, and the gardens inspired by its visions of infinite abundance and eventual catastrophe.
‘The Rewarding Mystery of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’
An article for Apollo magazine on the mysterious paintings of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and my changing understanding of them over the past twelve years.
‘Princeton Goes to Prison: Teaching Paradise Lost to Incarcerated Students’
An excerpt from my book in Literary Hub, describing a period of five years spent teaching in prisons in New Jersey, and exploring what I learned from my students about literature and its place in our world.