In his open, ­omnivorous writing on literature, ­visual art, and performance, Hilton Als has made critical analysis and introspection a conjoined practice. The essay, which he has called “a form without a form,” is his primary mode, and he invariably interweaves family and friendship, American fixations on and lived ­experiences of race and sexuality, metaphor and reality.

“I think that when one is dead one should be a little bit bolder, so that the rest of us may have some record of how things actually were.”

This is Sybille Bedford’s centennial year—she would have been one hundred years old today—and The Paris Review is marking it with a reading on Thursday, March 24. To learn more, click here. If you are interested in attending, please e-mail us.I have …