Literary Criticism

Rekdal's multimedia piece, "West: A Translation" -- which she'll read from here on campus -- employs translations, archival research, essays, poems, videos, and images in order to document the Angel Island Immigration Station in San Francisco Bay, where many Chinese migrants were detained after the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

Our longtime book reviewer makes some page-turning suggestions for book lovers of all sorts -- and for those who might be shopping for book lovers.

"[Hamid] reminds us yet again that fiction sometimes provides the most direct path to truth." -- BookPage (starred review)

"Joan Didion: What She Means" is an art exhibition now on view at UCLA's Hammer Museum; it renders the great writer's life and work through the creations of nearly 50 artists, including Betye Saar, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Maren Hassinger, and Ed Ruscha.

Museum Confidential: Season 7, Episode 5.

"[Hamid] reminds us yet again that fiction sometimes provides the most direct path to truth." -- BookPage (starred review)

"Nafisi...has a talent for combining the academic and the everyday, the theoretical and the personal, and thanks to her deliberate and confident voice, the lessons [in this book] will stick with us, too." -- The New York Times Book Review

"[Hamid] reminds us yet again that fiction sometimes provides the most direct path to truth." -- BookPage (starred review)

"Like a well-curated playlist, 'The Candy House' uses chapter breaks to switch perspectives and tempos without killing the mood, and each sensuous little story feels like a peek through the blinds at people whose larger journeys we can only guess at." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Nafisi moves effortlessly across the literary landscape.... [She] has a talent for combining the academic and the everyday, the theoretical and the personal, and thanks to her deliberate and confident voice, the lessons [in "Read Dangerously"] will stick with us, too." -- The New York Times Book Review