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by Mark Jay Mirsky
The Diaries of Franz Kafka is a new translation of Franz Kafka’s Journals by Ross Benjamin and his extensive notes open up a new chapter for readers in English who want to understand the inner life of Franz Kafka, a writer whose work has influenced many of the major writers of 20th and 21st century fiction as well as serious thinkers in fields as diverse as philosophy, history, and sociology.
Read moreby Mark Jay Mirsky
The editors at Fiction thought it might be worthwhile for me to comment on stories that we published in the current issue so as to give readers of our Web page an incentive to find the magazine in bookstores or to subscribe. At the same moment a note came in from a writer whom I prize and whose work I teach, Cynthia Ozick, and she has given me permission to print it here. Since she has mentioned my story, “On Account of an Apple,” her comment will suffice.
Read moreby Mark Jay Mirsky
In the past few months, I have found myself embroiled in the argument that the novel as an important creative form has died and that its death knell has tolled.
Read moreThis will be tiring for you, I know, and sometimes perhaps a little funny, because of my English pronunciation. So we can recuperate now and then, I will use quite a lot of quotes and the quotes you will hear in perfect English.
Read moreby Mark Jay Mirsky
In a complex (though damning) review of Peter Handke's "Crossing the Sierra Los Gredos," in the August 19, 2007 issue of the New York Times Sunday Book Review, one line caught my eye, and raised a vigorous "No, unfair!"
Read moreby Mark Jay Mirsky
When I am asked by writers what I look for in submissions to Fiction, I generally look blank. This is because I try to read the stories that come across my desk without preconceptions. I don't have a formula in my head. I know one editor of a prominent literary journal who announced that he could always tell from the first sentence whether a story was worth reading or not. I can't echo that. I do, however, usually know by the bottom of the first page whether or not I want to go on reading.
Read moreby Mark Jay Mirsky
In writing and thinking about the great figures in the world of fiction who have influenced me most, I am always drawn back to realize how engaged they are in the world of history, my second great love after literature. Donald Barthelme, without whose help and encouragement the magazine, Fiction, would never have begun, was passionate about politics and social issues, which permeate his fiction. Robert Musil's grasp of the balancing act of the Austrian Empire before the First World War is the background for his masterpiece, The Man Without Qualities.
Read moreby Mark Jay Mirsky
Last summer, one of the staunchest admirers of Fiction, Dorothea Straus, passed away. Several years before that, sensing how fragile she was in the wake of her distinguished husband, the publisher Roger Straus's death, I went out to their historic mansion in Westchester to film her reading one of her stories. Roger had rebuilt the house after a fire. The grounds, which spread with the largesse of a great baronial estate, were the home of a family whose public contributions to the United States was writ large.
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Since its inception, FICTION has aimed to bring the experimental to a broader audience, and to bring new voices to the forefront, publishing emerging authors alongside well known and established writers. Find out more about getting published in FICTION at our Submissions page.