Pathetic Literature

This is a unique collection of pieces from lesser-known classics by Franz Kafka, Samuel R. Delany, and Gwendolyn Brooks to up-and-coming writers that explore pathos and feeling. The word "pathetic" was first reclaimed by Myles for a seminar at the University of California San Diego in the early 2000s, restoring its original meaning of inspiring emotion or feeling. The anthology includes 106 contributors, including canonical global stars like Robert Walser, Jorge Luis Borges, Rumi, and Gwendolyn Brooks, literary libertines like Dodie Bellamy, Samuel R. Delany, and Bob Flanagan, and extraordinary writers on the rise like Nicole Wallace, Precious Okoyomon, and Will Farris. The collection features prose by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Jack Halberstam, and Porochista Khakpour, poems by Natalie Diaz, Victoria Chang, Lucille Clifton, and Ariana Reines, and fiction from Chester Himes, Djuna Barnes, Chris Kraus, and Qiu Miaojin. The result is an anomalous and uplifting anthology that encourages a fresh political discourse on literature and provides an essential compendium of pained, awkward, queer, trans, gleeful, and ever-jarring ways to think differently and live pathetically on a polarized and fearful planet.

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