Sam Sacks

I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason. Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.

“I spent three nights and three days in federal custody. During that time, I was never told what I was charged with, was not allowed to shower despite being covered in tear gas and pepper spray, had no phone call to my family, and no access to an attorney.” - George Retes, U.S. citizen and veteran.

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

Bynum Demands End to ICE Raids After U.S. Citizen Allegedly Abducted by Masked Agents Bynum compares ICE’s conduct to U.S. Marshals hunting down Black Americans under the Fugitive Slave Act.

www.wweek.com/news/2025/10...

He was previously with Random House over here. I'd guess the explanation (in the U.S.) is simply that MCD decided to splash out and won the bidding war. I am surprised 'The Orphan Master's Son' didn't get any traction where you are; maybe North Korea isn't a subject of as much fascination as here.

It's unusual because MCD is a division of FSG that, in my memory, usually publishes offbeat paperback original debut fiction. But Johnson is a (deserved) Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner. I've been reading him with awe since his great short story 'Teen Sniper' ran in Harper's in 2002.

‘Selected Letters of John Updike’ Review: Restless Correspondent John Updike worried that success would make him lazy. But his literary output—and his letters—kept up the pace.

It's the Fall Books double-issue at the WSJ and it's terrific. Moira Hodgson on Susan Orlean, Hugh Eakin on Douglas Cooper, Franz Nicolay on Talking Heads, Anna Mundow on John Banville, Kyle Smith on Marty McFly, Gioia Diliberto on Jane Birkin, Thomas Mallon on Updike! www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

‘The Wayfinder’ Review: Uncharted Waters Adam Johnson’s epic is a story of power, survival, loss and courage, set in the Polynesia of centuries past.

Now online is my WSJ review of Adam Johnson's 'The Wayfinder,' a fantastical epic set during the height of the Tu'i Tonga Empire in Polynesia. It's a book about storytelling that teems with wondrous stories. It is, I think, a genuinely great novel. Gift link here: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Thoreau, Oct. 10, 1856. While moving the fence to-day, dug up a large reddish, mummy-like chrysalid or nymph. [Pupa of white-lined sphinx moth by Wendy Hanson Mazet, adult by UW-Milwaukee]

I know, and I had it once, too! What a good magazine that was.

I loved following your travels with a donkey in the Cevenne, by the way--it's something I've really wanted to do.

photo of obscure literary pamphlet to accompany humorously pretentious lit-bro post

Oh, you don't have the Cahiers Series chapbook of Krasznahorkai's 'Animalinside'? That's cool I guess, though it's kinda the skeleton key to the author's whole chthonic oeuvre.

I had a great conversation yesterday with Daniel Akst, novelist and now publisher of Tivoli Books, a new press devoted to old and new neglected books, including @jonathangibbs.bsky.social's terrific novel of the art world, Randall. Interesting revivals in the pipeline from Tivoli.

tivolibooks.com

I took this picture of Olga and László in London in 2018. Congrats to Krasznahorkai and his translators, including George Szirtes and @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social, and long live a Central Europe free of dictators (foreign and domestic) and full of magnificent minds like these!

László Krasznahorkai Wins Nobel Prize in Literature The Swedish Academy in Stockholm credited him for his ‘compelling and visionary oeuvre’

Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Congrats!

WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

I'm going to take a flyer on Ibrahim al-Koni. A great and prolific writer whose books harness the power of both history and fable. And he's the undisputed laureate of a fraught part of the world that needs more global attention.

I Thought I Could Drive Stick. Then My Gen Z Daughter Asked Me to Teach Her. When my 16-year-old said she wanted to learn to drive a manual transmission, I decided it was time to sharpen my own clutch-pedal skills.

Here ya go. A vital skill! www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...

Thank you! I completely agree.

‘The Wayfinder’ Review: Uncharted Waters Adam Johnson’s epic is a story of power, survival, loss and courage, set in the Polynesia of centuries past.

Now online is my WSJ review of Adam Johnson's 'The Wayfinder,' a fantastical epic set during the height of the Tu'i Tonga Empire in Polynesia. It's a book about storytelling that teems with wondrous stories. It is, I think, a genuinely great novel. Gift link here: www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

wooden bookshelf with mass market paperbacks

(And here are the mass markets)

photos of bookshelves filled with volumes of literary criticism

I bought a new bookshelf--some kind of end-of-supply sale at the Container Store--and have finally made a little library of my literary criticism. I don't think any other kind of book has given me as much uncomplicated pleasure. (The Beckett is just a stopgap bookend, it will go elsewhere.)

The High Art of Distance - Liberties “Art, of course, lives in history,” said Elizabeth Hardwick. By which she meant that a novel emerges in its own time, and changes in its passage to our own. This — the likeness which is also an unlike...

Here, have 6000 words on Yasunari Kawabata: libertiesjournal.com/articles/the...

soybean farmers are panicking over loss of Chinese buyers, declare possible 'bloodbath'

Trump assault on wind projects hits red states hardest

businesses that depend on government contracts are already feeling the pain of the shutdown

no official jobs numbers during shutdown means Wall Street is turning to alternative measures -- and they show the situation is bad

If the economy could be represented by a giant dashboard of lights, they'd all be flashing red

Trump Wants to Overhaul Drug Sales. A Company Tied to His Son Stands to Benefit. The family members of President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are poised to benefit from efforts to remake the pharmaceutical industry.

President Trump’s and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s family members are positioned to benefit from efforts to overhaul drug sales.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

U.S Citizen Julie Moreno Returned to the United States Today, Preparing for Years of Separation from Her Husband Now in Mexico

Full press release below.

'I see the boys of summer in their ruin' seems more apt if they're going the Dylan Thomas route

Congrats on a great milestone

We are pleased to announce a celebration for our 100th title:
SchrummSchrumm, or The Sunday Quicksands Excursion by Fernand Combet. Marc Lowenthal will be joined by translators Erik Butler, Margaret Carson, Kit Schluter, Doug Skinner
Aeon Bookstore 151 E Broadway, NY, Thursday, October 30, 2025, 7pm

THE REMEMBERED SOLDIER is a FINALIST for the National Book Award @nationalbook.bsky.social for Translated Literature! Congratulations author Anjet Daanje+translator David McKay. "Superb...an unforgettable picture of marital love." @ssacks.bsky.social in @wsj.com.
www.nationalbook.org/books/the-re...

It's pub day for my book, "Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley," which chronicles the rise of the tech right and their role in the 2024 election. Thanks to everyone who helped along the way.
linktr.ee/gildedrage