Bookforum is back! After folding last year, the beloved lit mag is revived by the Nation
Lovers of long-form literary criticism have a little less to lament today. The Nation is bringing Bookforum back from the dead.
Six months after the beloved literary magazine Bookforum announced its December 2022 issue would be its last, the owners of the biweekly political magazine the Nation announced its resurrection. The quarterly, whose relaunch was announced Thursday, will resume publication with its full existing editorial team and produce its first new issue this August.
The Nation president Bhaskar Sunkara, along with editorial director and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel, will facilitate the relaunch. The Nation’s announcement emphasized that the literary journal’s open-minded cultural dialogue complements the political magazine’s dedication to independent thought. The Nation has been a leading source of opinion, reporting and cultural criticism from a progressive perspective since 1865.
“I always knew that it was a fairly unique outlet, and one that paid attention to a lot of contemporary trends and competing publications in a way that older literary publications didn’t,” Sunkara told the New York Times. “The economics of a relaunch seemed feasible, especially if it was supported by the infrastructure of an existing publication.”
The preexisting Bookforum team also expressed excitement about its new affiliation with the Nation. Michael Miller, who will remain Bookforum’s editor in chief, said the outlet knows how to run magazines, and praised the Nation’s president.
Bookforum, the review journal founded in 1994, announced it is shutting down. For decades, it helped connect literature to the wider world.
Bookforum’s closure last December was announced shortly after its sister publication, Artforum, was acquired by Penske Media Corporation. At the time, a representative for Penske Media told The Times the conglomerate acquired Artforum to add to its portfolio of art publications, but it did not acquire Bookforum and had no say in the decision to close it.
The lit journal’s former colleagues said in a press release that they were happy Bookforum had found new caretakers. “We are thrilled to have such a respected and value-aligned new home for Bookforum with The Nation,” said Kate Koza, Artforum’s associate publisher. “Bookforum is an essential publication within the literary landscape, and its editorial team is unmatched in their thoughtfulness, curation, and voice. We are grateful to The Nation for enabling this incredible team of editors and writers to continue the magazine’s mission.”
Bookforum featured emerging authors and literary legends, modern takes on classic works, and craft-centric content for both writers and bibliophiles since its launch in 1994. Through reviews, interviews and essays, the magazine and Bookforum.com plan to pick up where they left off.
In a lament for Bookforum’s earlier closure, former Times books editor and Bookforum contributor David L. Ulin called the journal “edgy, opinionated, willing to be provocative” and a reminder that “literature is a collective soul.”
“For so many of us in the book world,” Ulin added, “this quarterly review journal represented a kind of critical apotheosis, positioned in the middle territory between service journalism and the academy. ... There was something special in the way Bookforum privileged voices — those of the critics as well as of the writers under review. To engage with an issue has long felt to me like going to a fabulous party where the guests are not just brilliant but also personable.”
After being sold by UNLV to a digital marketing company, the Believer magazine has returned to its original longtime publisher, McSweeney’s.
Under the auspices of the Nation, there are no direct plans to change any of that. According to Sunkara, the only major difference in the relaunched Bookforum will be its revenue model. Because it was originally launched as a quarterly supplement to Artforum, the lit mag will still rely on ad sales but also require a serious ramp-up of subscription sales.
“We need to stubbornly try to make these institutions sustainable on their own,” Sunkara told the New York Times. “It’s somewhat defeatist to just say that these entities can’t be profitable, or that in a country of 330 million people — and in a much bigger language market — you can’t find enough people to sustainably produce a quarterly print magazine.”
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