Journalism and the Literary Imagination
Reading for Nonfiction Writers
If, as they say, there are many ways to skin a cat,
there are a great many more ways to write about it. There
are as many ways as there are writers. This course is
dedicated to the intensive reading of a wide variety of
masterpieces of the past century’s documentary literature
with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of the art
and craft of nonfiction story-telling. Our reading of
magazine pieces and books will include works by A.J.
Liebling, George Orwell, Joan Didion, Rian Malan, Janet
Malcolm, Michael Herr, Ryszard Kapuscinski, David Grann,
Liao Yiwu, Kate Boo, Svetlana Alexeyevich, Larissa
MacFarquhar, Emanuel Carrére, and also – so that we can
discuss how it got made – something of my own.
Every mode of expression has its formal demands. For
writing that’s not fictitious, that means fidelity to
documentable reality. Yet the best of it can only be done
when the writer has an imagination as free as any novelist,
playwright, or poet. In our readings and discussions, we
will examine the methods and attitudes writers bring to
bear on their material, and the purpose and effect of their
choices of form and style, of language and rhythm, of
humor and gravity, of simplicity and ornateness, of
authorial presence and authorial absence, of prose and
dialogue, of narration and oral history, of earnestness and
irony, of first person and third person and even second
person, of brevity and expansiveness, of intimacy and
distance, of description and argument. We’ll consider the
relationship of all these choices to subject matter: crime,
and presidential politics, and war, and race, and art, and
fame, and disillusionment, and journalism and the writer’s
work – among other themes. And we’ll talk about the
particular demands and constraints, possibilities and
limitations, and the complex ethics of writing true stories
from direct observation, encounter and investigation: the
art of interviewing and the tension between objectivity and
neutrality.
In addition to doing the reading, and engaging fully
in discussions, students will be expected to keep a
journal, recording thoughts about their reading, as well as
broader observations of the world around them that the
readings and discussions inspire. Each student will also be
assigned to prepare and present a journalistic oral report
about one of our readings, and one or two short pieces of
original writing.
Attendance is mandatory.
Philip Gourevitch – Spring 2016 – Reading List
(note: there may be substitutions, additions & subtraction)
Week #1:
stories from True Tales From the Annals of Crime &
Rapscality – St. Clair McKelway
The Earl of Louisiana by A.J. Liebling
Week #2
“Shooting an Elephant” and “A Hanging” by George Orwell
“Letter from Rome: Mussolini” by Philip Hamburger
“The Soccer War” by Ryszard Kapuscinski
“Atonement” by Dexter Filkins
Week #3
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Week #4
Lives Other than My Own by Emanuel Carrére
Week #4
stories from Chernobyl & Boys in Zinc by Svetlana
Alexievich
stories from The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu
“Assassin” by Christopher Stewart
Week #5
“Landing from the Sky” from Random Family by Adrian Nicole
Leblanc
“Present Waking Life” by Larissa MacFarquhar
“Last Call” by Larissa MacFarquhar
stories from The White Album by Joan Didion
Week #6
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Week #7
"The Case for Reparations" – Ta Nahesi Coates
"Trial by Fire" – David Grann
"After Welfare" – Kate Boo
"Invisible Army" – Sarah Stillman
Week #8
Dispatches by Michael Herr
Week #9
My Traitor’s Heart by Rian Malan