Anna Badkhen

Biography

Anna Badkhen is the author of seven books, most recently Bright Unbearable Reality (NYRB, 2022), longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award and for the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. Her awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship. She is an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

Headshot

See Work

FICTION / Fiction 2024

A Soviet Jew Walks Into a Bar in Harlem

By Anna Badkhen ,  Illustration by João Fazenda

My boyfriend doesn’t really drink but he loves bars. He likes talking to strangers (he’s a sales executive) and he likes talking to strangers at bars; I hate talking to strangers but I like listening, and I like listening to him do it, how...

Illustration by João Fazenda