Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday reading on nybooks.com: James Reidel on how Franz Werfel wrote his epic account of the Armenian genocide, Maureen Freely on Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul and her own, William H. Gass on studying literature with M.H. Abrams, and Stuart Hampshire on the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein.   This issue sponsored by the British Library

The Epic of a Genocide James Reidel Franz Werfel took what might have been a footnote in the history of World War I—the deportation and mass murder of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian minority—and wrote an epic that anticipated the ominous events in Germany as the Nazis came to power.   advertisement   Seeing Istanbul Again Maureen Freely When at last I had sent The Museum of Innocence off to the publisher, I went back into my own head for what felt at first like a luxury vacation. Little by little, I translated myself out of Orhan’s Istanbul and back into my own.   Learning from a Modern Master William H. Gass During the days I spent in Cornell’s philosophy department as a graduate student in the late 1940s, I thought poorly of English departments, and believed myself, concerning literature, beyond instruction.   advertisement   ‘A Wonderful Life’ Stuart Hampshire A review of Ray Monk’s biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was born on this day in 1889   In the May 7 issue: David Cole on gay rights and religious liberty, Anthony Grafton on Piero di Cosimo, Edith Hall on Sappho, Francine Prose on Toni Morrison, Annie Sparrow on chlorine in Syria, Fritz Stern on the nineteenth century, and more   Film A wide-ranging series pays homage to the cinephile film supreme, Hitchcock’s 1958 Vertigo, with a number of direct and indirect homages (BAM)   Television Comedy and tragedy jostle up against each other in an adaptation of The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling’s first work for adults (HBO)