Writers tell us about their literary loves as part of a forum which appears in PEN America 13: Lovers.

Jessica Hagedorn | John Barth | Yusef Komunyakaa | Stewart O’Nan | Anne Landsman |
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh | Lily Tuck | Jesse Ball | Elissa Schappell

Deities

My chief literary navigation-stars—all first encountered in my university undergraduate days and steered by ever since—are four: Odysseus, the archetypal Wandering Hero, en route home from Troy; Scheherazade, yarning through 1001 nights to save the kingdom and her neck; Don Quixote, tilting at windmills with his sarcastic sidekick Sancho; and Huck Finn, rafting down the heart-waters of America. While there are numerous others that I admire, these remain the principal deities in my pantheon.
 

Copyright © 2010 by John Barth.  All rights reserved.