Derek Neal’s Newsletter

Attention Is All We Need

On Leif Weatherby’s "Language Machines"

Sep 14 • 

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August 2025

Orality, Literacy, and Ismail Kadare’s “The File On H”

Resurrecting epic poetry via the novel

Aug 27 • 

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Everyone Once in Berlin

On Vincenzo Latronico’s ‘Perfection’

Published on The Metropolitan Review • Aug 8

July 2025

The Case For Autofiction

Derek Neal Explores the Twisting, Shifting Heart of Reality Itself

Published on The Republic of Letters • Jul 29

People as People

Stolen scenes in Kiarostami and Malick

Jul 12 • 

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June 2025

Going Beyond Language

On Jon Fosse's "The Other Name" (Books 1-2 of "Septology")

Jun 19 • 

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Men and Literature

The hermeneutics of suspicion, paranoid reading, and masculinity in The Horned Man

Jun 5 • 

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May 2025

Kill the Writer!

On Robert Altman's 1992 film, The Player, and the figure of "the writer"

May 22 • 

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The Encounter

Antonioni's "Blow-Up" and how to write about art

May 8 • 

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Practice v. Theory: The Final Round

Derek Neal on How Practice Can Change Your Life

Published on The Republic of Letters • May 1

April 2025

March 2025

Real Life

On Abbas Kiarostami’s “Close-Up”

Mar 28 • 

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