Lit Hub Weekly: April 14 - 18, 2025

• Martha A. Sandweiss unearths the hidden power, privilege and violence behind a 19th century photograph of the American west.  | Lit Hub History
• Chloe Garcia Roberts on reasons for hope in the field of translation: “Is translation an art or an action? The answer is both…” | Lit Hub On Translation
• Inside the past and present of Russia’s decades-long project deploying infiltrators in the West. | Lit Hub Politics
• Brittany Allen talks to Bruce Handy about the unsung artistry of an inside cover. | Lit Hub Design
• Decca Muldowney takes a deep dive into the world of online men cashing in on romantasy. | The Verge
• “The American homestead has never been apolitical.” Mira Ptacin on the illusion of safety and the omnipresent threat of white supremacist violence. | Harper’s Bazaar
• “The history of literature, Lovers of Franz K. suggests, is a history of imperfect translation, appropriation, and productive error.” Matt Broomfield on the relationship between Kafka and Kurdish. | The Baffler
• Jamieson Webster on the consequences of Wilhelm Reich’s work: “Reich is prophetic of an age when we’re incited to enjoy and enjoy—but wherein everyone, in a perverse twist, feels they are falling short of the enjoyment they could and should be having.” | Broadcast
• Rebecca Johnson asks how closely The Devil Wears Prada captures Anna Wintour. | Dorothy Parker’s Ashes
• Chris Mautner interviews Robert Crumb biographer Dan Nadel. | The Comics Journal
• Mark Chiusano wonders: Will there ever be another Great Gatsby? | The Nation
• “The idea that children are not routinely exposed to stories about gender and sexuality would baffle anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Disney canon.” Ian Millhiser examines potential outcomes of Mahmoud v. Taylor. | Vox
• H.M.A. Leow looks at mother-daughter relationships in Hisaye Yamamoto’s fiction. | JSTOR Daily
• “As one destroys, may another create and rebuild.” Elon Green will not be changing his name. | The New York Times
• Samuel G. Freedman wonders if David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross has always offered less a “ruthless critique of capitalism” than “a joyful ethnography of Donald Trump’s America.” | The New Republic
• “And perhaps it is this capacity for displacement and condensation, this unbounded potential for granting the imaginary a corporeal shape, that renders literature so akin to the space of a dream.” Alex Tan on On Mansoura Ez Eldin’s The Orchards of Basra. | Words Without Borders 
• Meta believes that the books it used to train its LLM have no individual economic value(?!?!) | Vanity Fair
• “This is not a typical swing in messaging as the party in power shifts; it’s a culture falling in on a hollowed-out center.” Ana Marie Cox examines how the far right won entertainment media. | The New Republic
• James O’Donnell explores what AI means for music. | MIT Technology Review

Also on Lit Hub:

The allure of the non-human love interest • The many roles of Jane Hirshfield • Why Black empowerment must bridge the opportunity gap • Tiana Clark on Phillis Wheatley Peters and the poetry of freedom • Aimee Semple McPherson and the allure of coming undone •  Read “The Quiet,” a poem by Aharon Shabtai • The mean girls of classic literature • On writing fiction inspired by folk music • Austin Kelley considers the evolving role of fact-checkers • The similarities between filmmaking and novel writing • The awkward adolescence of legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb • Heather Christie on losing a rib and writing a memoir • Creative intentions and class-based undertones behind phonetic writing • Sarah Weinman praises Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time • Les Murray’s sensory, Mozartian poems • Molly Odintz recommends five thrillers • How Western Christianity confronted a decade of change • “Is Canada a viable country?” Yes! • “Am I the literary asshole if I think basically all writers are assholes?” • Capturing a country as multifarious as Vietnam in a memoir • How directing plays taught Nicole Galland to write novels • 5 book reviews you need to read this week • How the Cherokee nation used diplomacy as a strategy • “It’s hard to explain ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ Nobody had created a pop song like this before.” • What’s Ariana Reines reading? • Reading Charles Reznikoff’s Holocaust at 50 • This week on the Lit Hub Podcast • The White Lotus and the literary power of an accusation • Alec Karakatsanis calls out news media • Jessica Slice explores the disastrous challenges of parenting in an ableist system • Crossing the Northwest Passage in the era of climate change • The best reviewed books of the week • Emily Everett recommends novels about coming of age