New YorkerestEssential reads from every New Yorker issue

May 9, 1959

The New Yorker cover for May 9, 1959

Featured Pick

the talk of the town

How Lorraine Hansberry Wrote “A Raisin in the Sun”

Lillian Ross

Lillian Ross talks with Lorraine Hansberry about how she became a playwright.

More picks from this issue

profiles

PUBLISHER: DESCENT FROM OLYMPUS

Geoffrey T. Hellman

fiction

John Smith, U.S.A. Buys The New Family Bus

Thomas Meehan