Archive - The Elif Life

Speak, Institutional Memory!

Nabokov at the New Yorker

Jun 6 •

May 2025

A Great Time for Personal Narrative

May 14 •

April 2025

Don't Worry, Baby

Help from the Beach Boys

Apr 25 •

Vanishing World bonus

Bonus content for paid subscribers... plus: a functional link!

Apr 8 •

The Scambusters

My Sayaka Murata profile is out in the world... along with a "dire wolf."

Apr 7 •

February 2025

In Dark Times, What is the Artist's Role?

Elif Batuman on writing, protest, couples therapy, and what happens when the loveless come to power.

Published on Who We Are To Each Other • Feb 27

Deep archival cuts (Founding Members bonus)

Feb 13 •

January 2025

The "Debate over Pure Literature"

New (to me) intel on novels, from Japan

Jan 22 •

December 2024

James Baldwin Makes the World Feel Bigger

Here's to 100 years of 1924

Dec 10, 2024 •

November 2024

An optimism post disguised as a short-story post

Nov 11, 2024 •

October 2024

On Being Butthurt

Writers' notebooks, "privilege," lugubriousness, and more

Oct 21, 2024 •

Places you have no reason to be

Oct 10, 2024 •

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