Irina Dumitrescu

“LITERATURE,” WRITES AZAREEN Van der Vliet Oloomi, “is a nation without boundaries. It is infinite. There are no stations, no castes, no checkpoints.” This is the promise at the heart of her new novel Call Me Zebra, that the exile who lives through books can acquire a more liberated identity than the one fate has in store. It explores the seductive qualities of this idea but also its ultimate brittleness: it is one thing to be nourished by the words of dead writers, quite another to f...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person who has never raised a picky eater knows exactly how to make other people’s children eat. Theirs is a special kind of wisdom, firm in its untested conviction, unsullied by something so banal as experience. Parents today are too accommodating, they will tell you, spoiling children by becoming their short-order cooks. Kids have too much access to junk food, anyway; give them a diet of roasted spelt and kombucha for a few weeks, and they will ...

Around the year 1116, Fulbert, the canon of Notre-Dame Cathedral, sought a live-in tutor for his gifted niece. The young woman was already well-known for her learning, so Fulbert chose an ostentatiously brilliant philosopher for the job. The man he hired had already challenged some of the best minds of his time, and was currently employed as master of the schools at Notre-Dame. He was a leading light of the Parisian intelligentsia. Given complete authority to teach and punish Héloïse, Abelard...

Irina Dumitrescu on the enchantment of books, early reading experiences, and the stories that shape us

Originally published by Petits Propos Culinaires (2013)
Picture a sausage, kept warm in a flat pan of water or oil, its uncased surface shriveled, drenched in ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder. A heap of French fries, blanketed with mayonnaise and ketchup, serves as accompaniment, or else a comparatively ascetic five-cent bread roll, generally stale. Any sane non-German, with properly calibrated taste buds and a sense of the limits to which innovation in food should be taken, will recoi...

The art of stuffing yourself while chancellor.

Why Libraries' Survival Matters - Up For Discussion...

What does it mean to engage in a practice aimed at perfection, when perfection is impossible?

Quench Your Curiosity with Zócalo's Summer Book Lis...

A professor of poetry uses a deck of playing cards to measure the time until her lover returns from Afghanistan. Congolese soldiers find their loneliness reflected in the lyrics of rumba songs. Survivors of the siege of Sarajevo discuss which book they would have never burned for fuel. A Romanian political prisoner writes her memoir in her head, a book no one will ever read. These are the arts of survival in times of crisis.

In an Age of Instagram-Perfect Dishes, What's the C...

What role does dissent play in academic life?

Lauren Zehara Haas' Hafla for Humanity -- a project to help refugees through dance

Alan Kurdi was not the first refugee child to die this year, nor was he the first one to be photographed. Why did his picture make a difference?

A brief history of the currywurst