Batuman

Anyway, Elif Batuman is reading at McNally Jackson Books on Monday, and if you live in New York YOU NEED TO GO, and you should also bring a diaper, because if she is a tenth as funny in person, you are going to PEE YOUR PANTS.

Archive 2010-03-01 2010

Anyway, Elif Batuman is reading at McNally Jackson Books on Monday, and if you live in New York YOU NEED TO GO, and you should also bring a diaper, because if she is a tenth as funny in person, you are going to PEE YOUR PANTS.

Heavy Metal Self-Helps 2010

As Batuman writes, "Wasn't the point of love that it made you want to learn more, to immerse yourself, to become possessed?"

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

Looking back, Batuman writes, "Love is a rare and valuable thing, and you don't get to choose its object."

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

That Elif Batuman's literary fixation happens to be with Russian books almost seems arbitrary, but, in a way, also destined: Originally a linguistics major, Batuman (a Turkish American academic in comparative literature) chose Russian as her foreign language requirement, only to find the abstraction of linguistics giving way to the much more compelling stories, culture, and language of Russia itself.

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

Batuman has a rare combination of gifts as an academic and a storyteller, and The Possessed takes the form of a collection of essays that's part literary criticism, part humor writing, part travelogue, and part memoir.

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

When Batuman enrolled as a linguistics student at Harvard and chose Russian as her language requirement, she found herself increasingly drawn away from the rules of study of language as a whole and toward the much more "profoundly human" aspect of the Russian language itself.

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

Batuman went on to complete her doctorate in comparative literature at Stanford University, where she currently teaches in the Interdisciplinary Humanities program.

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

In a similar way, Batuman has also made her life vulnerable to books.

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010

But in The Possessed, Batuman confesses, "I wanted to be a writer, not an academic."

Review of The Possessed by Elif Batuman 2010