Harper's Magazine

Harper's Magazine The essays, reportage, criticism, and fiction published in Harper’s Magazine transcend the news cycle and upend conventional wisdom.

Harper's Magazine introduces readers to people and places—as near as the next state, continents away, or sprung from an author’s imagination—that are at once foreign, yet surprisingly familiar. Since the magazine’s founding in 1850, we have sought out writers who look for truth with their own eyes and relay it in their own voices. We are unconvinced by rumors about readers’ dwindling attention spans, but we know that pithiness is often passion’s best ally.

“Owens implied that their professions were suspicious and asserted, without evidence, ‘We know for a fact that psychiatr...
10/08/2025

“Owens implied that their professions were suspicious and asserted, without evidence, ‘We know for a fact that psychiatrists have done some evil things.’”⁠
⁠
From a lawsuit filed in Delaware in July by French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife against the American right-wing podcast host Candace Owens.

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/10/jaccuse-candace-owens-emmanuel-macron-lawsuit/

“You walk as long as it would have taken to drive home, and then longer. He stays a little too far ahead for you to catc...
10/08/2025

“You walk as long as it would have taken to drive home, and then longer. He stays a little too far ahead for you to catch up without running. You know, somehow, not to run.”

A new story from Matthew Shen Goodman.

October 2025 Issue [Story] Enjoy the Break, Demons Download PDF Adjust Share by Matthew Shen Goodman, Illustrations by Dominic Bodden Your dad never said he wanted a boy. He says he never said it too. He says he wouldn’t have changed a thing. Same same but different. There are universal standards ...

“Reason, rationalism, individualism, the rejection of the past, the framing of custom as an obstacle, the idealization o...
10/08/2025

“Reason, rationalism, individualism, the rejection of the past, the framing of custom as an obstacle, the idealization of progress and perpetual renewal: Bezos would recognize all of this, and perhaps nod in vigorous assent.” —Paul Kingsnorth

October 2025 Issue [Readings] Critique of Pure Reason Download PDF Adjust Share by Paul Kingsnorth, By Paul Kingsnorth, from Against the Machine, which was published last month by Thesis. Before Jeff Bezos went to space in 2021, a petition to bar him from returning to Earth garnered more than two hu...

“How did I find dignity in a book that seems so determined to strip dignity away from its characters, especially its gay...
10/08/2025

“How did I find dignity in a book that seems so determined to strip dignity away from its characters, especially its gay characters? Where did I find affirmation in a book so enamored of the abyss?”

Garth Greenwell on Giovanni’s Room.

On the place of affirmation in art

A photograph by James Van Der Zee from The Harlem Book of the Dead, which will be published this month by Primary Inform...
10/08/2025

A photograph by James Van Der Zee from The Harlem Book of the Dead, which will be published this month by Primary Information. Originally published in 1978 by Morgan & Morgan, the book features Van Der Zee’s funerary photographs onto which he superimposed celestial figures, poetry, biblical scenes, or portraits to compensate for lack of adornments, such as flowers, or to fulfill the requests of his subjects or their families. The accompanying poem by Owen Dodson was selected by Camille Billops, who edited the 1978 edition.⁠
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Photograph by James Van Der Zee © James Van Der Zee Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Poem © Owen Dodson. Both courtesy Primary Information

Ian Reflected (Guston kettle), a painting by Anthony Cudahy, whose work is on view through October 18 at GRIMM, in Amste...
10/06/2025

Ian Reflected (Guston kettle), a painting by Anthony Cudahy, whose work is on view through October 18 at GRIMM, in Amsterdam © The artist. Courtesy the artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam, London, New York

“The open letter still stands and signifies, even if it did not stop the genocide. Brent’s life continues to resound for...
10/03/2025

“The open letter still stands and signifies, even if it did not stop the genocide. Brent’s life continues to resound for me like a percussive crash long after his body was perforated and discarded and his excesses, both sacred and profane, completed.” —David Velasco ()

A friend’s life, a brutal death

“Earis told me that, when he criticized the organization at a meeting in 2007, committee members were 'literally booing'...
10/03/2025

“Earis told me that, when he criticized the organization at a meeting in 2007, committee members were 'literally booing' him as he spoke.”

on a controversy in the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers.

A revolution in English bell ringing

“Ken Wilson, a professor of English and creative writing, attempts to glimpse [Saskatchewan]’s prairie grasslands as the...
10/03/2025

“Ken Wilson, a professor of English and creative writing, attempts to glimpse [Saskatchewan]’s prairie grasslands as they might have been before they were despoiled by settler colonialism. The two latest examples of that despoliation are the Regina Bypass, an expensive highway completed in 2019, and the Global Transportation Hub, an expensive logistics center … built in 2009. Hoping to forge a deeper connection with the land, Wilson decides to walk to the Hub along the shoulder of the Bypass: a flat, dangerous, deeply unpicturesque journey into the heart of nowhere. Can he turn this non-place into a place?”⁠
⁠
Dan Piepenbring reviews Walking The Bypass: Notes on Place From The Side of the Road, by Ken Wilson. Read more at the link in our bio. ⁠
⁠
Image: Loop, by Cherie Benner Davis © The artist

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/10/new-books-dan-piepenbring-cory-doctorow-ken-wilson-adrienne-mayor-history-tech/

“I hate Basel. It’s the most prideful of the fairs, swollen with wealth and haunted by its furiously repressed specter, ...
10/02/2025

“I hate Basel. It’s the most prideful of the fairs, swollen with wealth and haunted by its furiously repressed specter, scarcity. Mesopotamian corpses, stirred by the babble of trade, wander the halls wrapped in shrouds of extravagant malice.” —David Velasco

A friend’s life, a brutal death

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