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Literary Journalism
Literary Journalism

Collection

Writing from observation, about people, places, and things in the present. A type of creative nonfiction.

Creative Nonfiction
Creative Nonfiction

Collection

Literary writing about real people, places, and things.

Complete archive

Creative Nonfiction

Literary writing about real people, places, and things.

Featured
Susan Orlean, "The American Man, Age Ten"
Susan Orlean, "The American Man, Age Ten"

This classic essay takes the form of the journalistic profile piece—usually used to write about “important” and “unusual” people—and turns it on its head, using it instead to delve into the life of someone utterly ordinary: a “typical” ten-year-old American boy.

Yiyun Li, "A Clean, Well-lighted Place"
Yiyun Li, "A Clean, Well-lighted Place"

In this personal essay from The New Yorker, novelist Yiyun Li writes about adjusting to cultural differences when she first comes to the United States.

Joseph Mitchell, "The Old House at Home"
Joseph Mitchell, "The Old House at Home"

Joseph Mitchell’s classic piece of literary journalism, published in 1940, paints a vivid portrait of a neighborhood saloon in New York’s Lower East Side.

盛可以，《怀乡书》
盛可以，《怀乡书》

A book of illustrated miniature essays, each about an object or practice related to life in a rural village.

Susan Orlean, "Shortcuts"
Susan Orlean, "Shortcuts"

Journalist Susan Orlean paints a portrait of her neighborhood hair salon.

E. B. White, "Here is New York"
E. B. White, "Here is New York"

E. B. White’s classic essay published in 1948, one of the most famous literary essays about New York City.

汪曾祺，《多年父子成兄弟》
汪曾祺，《多年父子成兄弟》
张爱玲，《公寓生活记趣》
张爱玲，《公寓生活记趣》

Eileen Chang on the pleasures of apartment living. A lesser-known personal essay by the famous author, set during wartime Shanghai.

朱自清，《背影》
朱自清，《背影》
Joseph Mitchell, "Professor Sea Gull"
Joseph Mitchell, "Professor Sea Gull"

Joseph Mitchell’s famous 1942 profile of Joe Gould, the Greenwich Village eccentric who claimed to be writing a voluminous “Oral History of Our Time.”

Susan Orlean, "The Maui Surfer Girls"
Susan Orlean, "The Maui Surfer Girls"

Susan Orleans profiles a group of free-living teenage surfer girls in Hawaii.

Yiyun Li, "The Man Who Eats"
Yiyun Li, "The Man Who Eats"

Novelist Yiyun Li writes about her grandfather, his times, and his relationship with food.

Rick Bragg, "In a Louisiana Bayou Town, Uncle Pat is the Law"
Rick Bragg, "In a Louisiana Bayou Town, Uncle Pat is the Law"

Journalist Rick Bragg paints a vivid picture of the life of a small-town policemen in the rural South.

Scott Russell Sanders, "Buckeye"
Scott Russell Sanders, "Buckeye"

Sanders writes about the special relationship between his father and the fruit of a local tree.

Rick Bragg, "Savoring a Sweet Taste of Southern Summers"
Rick Bragg, "Savoring a Sweet Taste of Southern Summers"

Journalist Rick Bragg writes an ode to sweet iced tea, the archetypal Southern drink.

Yiyun Li, "Orange Crush"
Yiyun Li, "Orange Crush"

Author Yiyun Li recalls her first encounter with a Western luxury product in 1980s Beijing.

Peter Hessler, "River Town"
Peter Hessler, "River Town"

Rivertown is Peter Hessler's memoir of living and teaching in rural Sichuan province as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1990s. It is one of the most widely read accounts in the English-speaking world of living in China as a foreigner.

Yiyun Li, "Listening is Believing"
Yiyun Li, "Listening is Believing"

A short personal essay in which author Yiyun Li describes her childhood in 1980s Beijing and the origins of her desire to study English.

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