The New Yorker: Fiction

Daniyal Mueenuddin joins Deborah Treisman to discuss “Two Pilgrims,” by Peter Taylor, which was published in The New Yorker in 1963. Mueenuddin is the author of the novel “This Is Where the Serpent Lives,” which was published in January, and the story collection “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” which was published in 2009 and won both the Story Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

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Tessa Hadley joins Deborah Treisman to read “Gold Watch,” by John McGahern, which was published in The New Yorker in 1980. Hadley has published thirteen books of fiction, including the story collections “Bad Dreams” and “After the Funeral,” and the novella “The Party.” She won a Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction in 2016. 

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Bryan Washington joins Deborah Treisman to read “A Small Flame,” by Yiyun Li, which was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Washington, a winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, is the author of the story collection “Lot” and the novels “Memorial,” “Family Meal,” and “Palaver,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2025.

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Miriam Toews joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Elephant,” by Raymond Carver, which was published in The New Yorker in 1986. Toews has published ten books, including the novels “A Complicated Kindness,” which won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction; “All My Puny Sorrows,” “Women Talking,” and “Fight Night”—and the memoir “A Truce That Is Not Peace.” 

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Adam Levin joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Backbone,” by David Foster Wallace, which was published in The New Yorker in 2011. Levin, a winner of the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, is the author of the story collection “Hot Pink” and the novels “The Instructions,” “Bubblegum,” and “Mount Chicago.”

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