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Rhian Sasseen

@rhiansasseen.bsky.social
417 followers 278 following 47 posts

Words at The Atlantic, BOMB, The Baffler, Granta, The Paris Review, etc www.rhiansasseen.com

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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
For @thenation.com, I wrote about the summer that I—heartbroken, depressed, and as lapsed as a lapsed Catholic can possibly be—unexpectedly spent five weeks walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, and the question of belief in our fractious moment. www.thenation.com/article/arch...
thenation.com
Walking the Camino in the Shadow of Belief
I trudged through Spain as a rift grew within American Catholicism. I returned home with a renewed sense and understanding of faith.
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The Baffler @thebaffler.com · 27/01/2026
At Beckomberga, the patients have too much time on their hands—and yet live somehow outside of it. @rhiansasseen.bsky.social writes on Sara Stridsberg’s melancholy novel of one family’s experience of mental illness.
thebaffler.com
Corridors of Grief | Rhian Sasseen
In “Beckomberga,” Sara Stridsberg explores the repercussions that mental illness and addiction have on one family’s psyche.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about Sara Stridsberg’s novel Beckomberga, and how it looks at the history of institutionalization, the abstraction of time, and one family’s experience with mental illness. thebaffler.com/latest/corri...
thebaffler.com
Corridors of Grief | Rhian Sasseen
In “Beckomberga,” Sara Stridsberg explores the repercussions that mental illness and addiction have on one family’s psyche.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
tonight!
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
For MUBI Notebook, I wrote about Christian Marclay’s follow up to “The Clock”—“Doors”—and the doorway as possibility, transformation, and crossroads. mubi.com/en/notebook/...
mubi.com
At the Threshold of a Dream: On Christian Marclay’s “Doors”
The artist behind “The Clock” returns with a litany of passageways.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Tomorrow, November 18 — come by Bar Jade in Bushwick at 7 p.m. for the latest Wish You Were Here reading series I help co-curate! Tomorrow’s will feature Elvia Wilk, Jack Sheehan, Colleen Grablick, Kate Peters, and myself! RSVP: partiful.com/e/q8CbHkPnTT...
partiful.com
wish you were here: a prose reading | Partiful
Featuring prose readings by Elvia Wilk, Rhian Sasseen, Kate Peters, Colleen Grablick, and Jack Sheehan. If you are interested in participating in the future, email us! katelyn.d.peters@gmail.com and ...
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Oops, I didn't realize until now this was live — but last month, for the @washingtonpost.com, I reviewed the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov’s new novel about the death of a parent, Death and the Gardener: www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/1...
washingtonpost.com
Review | How do you tell the story of a dying parent?
Georgi Gospodinov reckons with the passing of his father in his autobiographical novel “Death and the Gardener.”
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
For @thenation.com , I wrote about Ron Padgett’s latest poetry collection, Pink Dust, and life as a continual act of reading. www.thenation.com/article/cult...
thenation.com
The Immortal Poetry of Ron Padgett
Pink Dust, a collection about aging and death, offers an optimistic vision of life as a continual act of reading.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
For The Atlantic, I wrote about Claire-Louise Bennett’s latest novel, Big Kiss, Bye-Bye, and what it has to say about the internet’s favorite topic—the relationship between heterosexual women and men: www.theatlantic.com/books/2025/1...
theatlantic.com
A Novel That Understands Where Romance Is Going
Claire-Louise Bennett’s new novel offers an unexpected take on the gender divide.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
I have a short story, “The Pessimist”—following a woman as she stalks her apartment building’s halls at night—in the dreamy new issue of @angelfoodmag.bsky.social: angelfoodmag.com/the-pessimist
angelfoodmag.com
The Pessimist — Angel Food
cargo.site
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Tonight!!
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Tomorrow! I’ll be asking Eimear McBride some questions about her wonderful new novel, The City Changes Its Face, at McNally Jackson Seaport starting at 7 p.m.—hope to see you there! www.mcnallyjackson.com/eimear-mcbri...
mcnallyjackson.com
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
For the fall issue of Kinfolk, I interviewed Vincenzo Latronico about the process of writing Perfection, the influence of Georges Perec on his work, what it’s like to be translated as a translator, and more: www.kinfolk.com/stories/on-t...
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
For the Poetry Foundation, I wrote about the Chinese poet Zheng Xiaoqiong’s incredible collection In the Roar of the Machine, translated by Eleanor Goodman and published by @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social, and the work of Chinese migrant worker poets. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/172...
poetryfoundation.org
Bodies on the Line
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
For @clereviewbooks.bsky.social, I wrote about Lara Mimosa Montes’s excellent ‘The Time of the Novel,’ and the book’s porous boundary between reality and fiction: clereviewofbooks.com/inside-out-o...
clereviewofbooks.com
Inside Out: On Lara Mimosa Montes’s “The Time of the Novel” - Cleveland Review of Books
In "The Time of the Novel", these anxieties concerning what constitutes the real versus the fictional are pushed to their logical extreme: a young woman quits her bookstore job in order to instead, sh...
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
For @electricliterature.com, I interviewed Rosalind Belben in anticipation of the rerelease of her seductively strange 1979 novel ‘Dreaming of Dead People’ this month from @andotherstories.bsky.social: electricliterature.com/rosalind-bel...
electricliterature.com
Rosalind Belben Reflects on the Foreplay of Wordplay - Electric Literature
The author of “Dreaming of Dead People” discusses sexuality, double standards in art, and the vicissitudes of literary publishing
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Wrote a bit about Marlen Haushofer’s ecofeminist classic The Wall on my newsletter phrasebooks.substack.com/p/returning-...
phrasebooks.substack.com
Returning to The Wall
On Marlen Haushofer’s ecofeminist classic.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Wrote briefly about the crowds I’ve been surrounded by the last few weeks—political crowds, crowds of tourists, parties— phrasebooks.substack.com/p/the-crowd
phrasebooks.substack.com
The Crowd
There is always a moment, when standing in a crowd, in which the press of bodies turns diffuse, oddly amorphous; the individual obscured by this mass of flesh.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
For the @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social, I wrote about Caleb Femi’s panoramic poetry collection from earlier this year, The Wickedest, and writing about parties: lareviewofbooks.org/article/my-d...
lareviewofbooks.org
My Direct Debits Hit at Midnight | Los Angeles Review of Books
Rhian Sasseen considers party-writing in Caleb Femi’s latest poetry collection, “The Wickedest.”
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Next Wednesday, May 28th! Come by Bar Jade in Bushwick at 7 p.m. for another reading organized by Kate Peters and me! Featuring work by: - Jenna Klorfein - Ismail Muhammad - Alex Wolfe - Rob Rubsam (@robrubsam.bsky.social) See you there!! partiful.com/e/LhcoSXdMXe...?
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Rachael King @rachaelking70.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
This was just posted by @tbretc.bsky.social on another platform. The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books. What are we coming to?
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about Mathias Énard’s incredible new novel, The Deserters, the end of the twentieth century, and time repeating itself both in fiction and in real life: thebaffler.com/latest/the-t...
thebaffler.com
The Time of Return | Rhian Sasseen
In Mathias Énard’s “The Deserters,” history has a way of repeating itself.
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Robert Rubsam @robrubsam.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
I will be reading from the new novel at Bushwick's Bar Jade on Wednesday, May 28th. Many thanks to @rhiansasseen.bsky.social for inviting me to read alongside some truly fantastic people, and to try out what I've been writing these past months.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
I wrote a newsletter about the Portuguese artist Helena Almeida, her use of the color blue, and the words “listen to me” phrasebooks.substack.com/p/i-turn-mys...
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
For @theatlantic.com, I wrote about Claire Baglin’s new novel On the Clock, a book that dares to take mundane work seriously www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
theatlantic.com
What Does the Literature of the Working Class Look Like?
A portrait of life at a fast-food restaurant shows that there’s both dignity and drudgery in all kinds of labor.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Got the inaugural issue of @fallowmedia.bsky.social in the mail a few days ago, and it’s beautiful — plus, I’ve got an essay in it on the work of the Polish photographer Joanna Piotrowska in it
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maija @maijasofia.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Announcing issue 1 of fallow, a new literary journal, featuring new work by @evagriff.bsky.social @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social @greggerkesocrates.bsky.social Oisin Fagan, Ellen Dillon, Gabriel Josipivici, Helen Charman, Chris Beausang, Pascale Sardin @rhiansasseen.bsky.social & Patrick Nathan
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Some of you might recall that I used to have a newsletter called phrase books, mostly about literature and art mostly in translation. After ignoring it for, oh, two or three years, I'm bringing it back. This new one is about Christian Marclay's The Clock and more: open.substack.com/pub/phrasebo...
open.substack.com
the return of phrase books
On Christian Marclay’s The Clock and Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Rereading Georgi Gospodinov’s excellent, relevant Time Shelter (translated by Angela Rodel)
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
“It Is March,” W. S. Merwin
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Smith & Taylor Classics @sandtclassics.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Edith Wharton's TWILIGHT SLEEP returns to the THE ATLANTIC in all her glory. 🥂 Thank you @rhiansasseen.bsky.social! www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Six Older Books That Deserve to Be Popular Today
In recent years, these titles have found themselves justifiably rescued from oblivion.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Solvej Balle! Anne Serre! They are so, so good. I wrote about On the Calculation of Volume for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv... And for @thepointmag.bsky.social I once wrote about some earlier works of Anne Serre’s translated into English: thepointmag.com/criticism/a-...
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Wrote a fun round-up for @theatlantic.com of reissues that deserve to be rediscovered, with work by Hermann Ungar, Nettie Jones, Jacqueline Harpman, and more www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
theatlantic.com
Six Books That Deserve a Second Life
In recent years, these titles have found themselves justifiably rescued from oblivion.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
TONIGHT!! WISH YOU WERE HERE reading series 7pm at Bar Jade in Bushwick! Featuring: Elina Alter Kate Peters Walker Rutter-Bowman Noor Qasim And me! See you there!!
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
One week from today!! Come by!
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
Dubravka Ugresic, from her last book before her death, A Muzzle for Witches (translated by Ellen Elias-Bursic)
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
My friend Kate and I have another evening of our WISH YOU WERE HERE reading series coming up on Wednesday, January 29, at 7 pm at Bar Jade in Bushwick! Featuring: Elina Alter Kate Peters Walker Rutter-Bowman Noor Qasim And me! See you there??
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
My favorite piece of my writing that was published this year was this short story, “Pornography,” with the @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social, in which a woman crawls through a phone screen to try to have a conversation with the man watching her on the other side lareviewofbooks.org/article/porn...
lareviewofbooks.org
Pornography | Los Angeles Review of Books
Rhian Sasseen depicts the relationship between a lonely man and his phone—one that takes a sudden, surreal turn—in a short story from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
For @TheAtlantic, I wrote about the first two volumes of the Danish writer Solvej Balle’s seven-part novel On the Calculation of Volume, and how fiction allows us to start and stop time: www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
theatlantic.com
What If Every Day Were November 18?
In Solvej Balle’s new series of novels, the concept of a time loop is more than a gimmick; it’s a way of rethinking human existence.
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 12/12/2024
In the Danish writer Solvej Balle’s new series of novels, the concept of a time loop is more than a gimmick; it’s a way of rethinking human existence, writes Rhian Sasseen:
theatlantic.com
What If Every Day Were November 18?
In Solvej Balle’s new series of novels, the concept of a time loop is more than a gimmick; it’s a way of rethinking human existence.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
For @TheAtlantic, I wrote about the first two volumes of the Danish writer Solvej Balle’s seven-part novel On the Calculation of Volume, and how fiction allows us to start and stop time: www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
theatlantic.com
What If Every Day Were November 18?
In Solvej Balle’s new series of novels, the concept of a time loop is more than a gimmick; it’s a way of rethinking human existence.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
The new Hong Sang-soo movie is ninety minutes of Isabelle Huppert charming her way through Seoul and being the worst French teacher of all time…pure bliss
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Photos by Joanna Piotrowska at the ICA In Philadelphia
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
I’m a little over two hundred pages into The Magic Mountain and this scene with the x-rays is just incredible
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Words Without Borders & WWB Campus @wwborders.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
We've added lots of great translation and global lit-centric presses and mags to this list since last week! If you think we've missed something, let us know! go.bsky.app/RPkPdAM
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Begrudgingly firing up this thing again
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 27/11/2023
A review I wrote for @thenation.com on Ange Mlinko’s collection Venice—with its poems about cities, ruin, and humanity’s capacity for self-destruction—is now up online: www.thenation.com/article/cult...
thenation.com
Poetry for Sinking Places and Sinking People
Ange Mlinko’s Venice is a collection of poems about cities, ruin, and humanity’s capacity for self-destruction.
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 09/11/2023
Adania Shibli: “...language is not merely a tool for communication. It often hides rather than articulates, holding between its silence endless possibilities not concerned with expression. Language can be attacked, abused.” www.theguardian.com/books/2023/n...
theguardian.com
‘In the last four weeks language has deserted me’: Adania Shibli on being shut down
Speaking out for the first time since the cancellation of her award ceremony at the Frankfurt book fair, the Palestinian author sheds light on her work and the power of linguistics and erasure
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 01/09/2023
I have a review in the new issue of BOMB magazine of Mónica Ojeda’s nightmarish, excellent new novel about a twisted video game, ‘Nefando’: bombmagazine.org/articles/mon...
bombmagazine.org
BOMB Magazine | Monica Ojeda's Nefando
The latest novel from Ecuadorian author and National Book Award finalist Mónica Ojeda is “preoccupied with things dark and digital.”
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Rhian Sasseen @rhiansasseen.bsky.social · 24/08/2023
Really enjoying Christine Lai’s Landscapes
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