The Elif Life

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What if you imagine the reader as someone who loves you?
NB—Today’s post is a follow-up to the last one. In 2019, I traveled for the first time to Ukraine. There, I experienced a series of realizations about…
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Elif Batuman
11
The Hall of Hedgehogs
Bonus thank-you for Founding Subscribers
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Elif Batuman
1
I'm Done Worrying about "Self-Plagiarism"
and other thoughts about diachronic writing
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Elif Batuman
13
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Welcome to the Eliflife
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8
My Journey with Manhole Covers
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3
Another Day, Another Slay
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13
Thoughts on publishing and form
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1
My Conversation with Chat GPT about Proust
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4
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Another Day, Another Slay
a story from 2 days ago
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Elif Batuman
13
Lviv dispatch
A lot of people in my life have been asking me why I would go to a book festival in Ukraine during a war, so I will start with answering that. Just to…
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Elif Batuman
8
Short Story Maps
Dear Readers! I’m writing this on the plane from Warsaw (after a nine-hour drive across the Ukrainian-Polish border), on the way back from a…
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Elif Batuman
5
Short Stories, II
Fireproof your barn!
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Elif Batuman
7
My Journey with Short Stories, Part I
Dear readers, greetings! Today I am writing about short stories, prompted by a reader question from a couple weeks back (slowly catching up on these…
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Elif Batuman
9
It's Curtains
Tolstoy-related synchronicity while moving apartments
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Elif Batuman
16
Humans 1, AI 0
The Case of the Forgotten Quote
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Elif Batuman
2
The Elif Life
The Elif Life
Biweekly dispatches from the author of The Idiot
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