This Week’s Issue: Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic?

Elena Ferrante’s new novel, a transit worker’s survival story, and how Wagner shaped Hollywood. View in browser | Update your preferences Annals of Science Did Pangolin Trafficking Cause the Coronavirus Pandemic? The elusive animals’ possible involvement in the origins of covid-19 gives them a weird ambivalence: threatened and, perhaps, dangerous. By David Quammen Profiles Can Biden’s Center Hold? After a career built on incremental progress, Joe Biden is promising a Presidency of transformational change. The election will test whether his campaign can bring together a divided Party and a beleaguered country. By Evan Osnos Our Local Correspondents A Transit Worker’s Survival Story Driving a New York City bus during a pandemic and an uprising. By Jennifer Gonnerman A Critic at Large What Brings Elena Ferrante’s Worlds to Life? For three decades, the stormy relationship between mothers and daughters has animated her fiction. Her new novel is a departure. By Judith Thurman Onward and Upward with the Arts How Wagner Shaped Hollywood The composer has infiltrated every phase of movie history, from silent pictures to superhero blockbusters. By Alex Ross Comment Did the Democratic National Convention Go Too Smoothly? An in-person event might have exposed conflicts in the Party, but it also might have offered a chance to address them. By Amy Davidson Sorkin On Television Rewatching “Black Journal” Five Decades On The pioneering news show, launched in 1968 and now available to stream, had soul and an insider energy. By Doreen St. Félix Books A “Beowulf” for Our Moment Maria Dahvana Headley’s revisionist translation infuses the Old English poem with feminism and social-media slang. By Ruth Franklin Humor from The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs Mrs. Nice Guy “Despite what the media would have you believe, my husband is not a pushover.” By Alexis Wilkinson Cartoons From The Issue Cartoons from the Issue Drawings and drollery from this week’s magazine. This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To insure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com. For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.