Literature

Yogurt

The future belongs to a cultured dairy product, in science fiction writer John Scalzi's short story "The Day the Yogurt Took Over."  Read by Adam Hirsch.

At the height of the Vietnam War, on the night of the full moon, a baby girl is born along the Song Ma River in her mother's grave. Her name is Rabbit, and she can hear the dead. In a luminous debut novel, "She Weeps Each Time You're Born," Wisconsin poet and writer Quan Barry explores wartime Vietnam through the eyes of a little girl with an uncommon gift.

TTBOOK

Nobel Prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk offers his take on why he writes.

UFO

Until more recently, African fiction, like Africa itself, has historically been divided by the polarizing logic of colonialism. But the next generation is taking on genre fiction, including sci-fi. In "Lagoon," written by Nigerian author Nnedi Okorafor, aliens land in Lagos.

Claudia Rankine

In her book "Citizen: An American Lyric," poet Claudia Rankine challenges readers to explore their underlying assumptions about race. She tells Charles Monroe-Kane what compelled her to write the book, and about visiting Ferguson, Missouri.

"Conversation in the Cathedral."

Diplomat and writer Emily Parker say by Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa uses fiction to uniquely depict what it actually looks like living day-to-day under a authoritarian regime.

texting people in the dark

Could being digitized be a way for all of us to become immortal? Maybe, but not in a way we would particularly enjoy, as this story from listener Mark Pantoja illustrates.

Ghosts

Poet Edward Hirsch has written many collections of poetry and criticism. He wrote the long-running “Poet’s Choice” column in the Washington Post. He spoke with Steve Paulson about his elegy to his son, “Gabriel: A Poem.”

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