Book Critic Merve Emre Is the Most Divisive Name in the Literary World

As Merve Emre takes over the literary world, the book critic has received hate mail and gone head-to-head with top universities.

Amy Lombard for BI Last winter, the 37-year-old literary critic and Wesleyan professor Merve Emre stood in front of a microphone in Rachel Comey's Soho boutique. The New York Review of Books was celebrating its new collection with the downtown designer, and the editor Emily Greenhouse had invited five contributors to give readings for the occasion. While the others had largely opted to pull boldfaced names from the Review's archives — like a 1985 Gore Vidal piece about Tennessee Williams — Merve Emre would be reading Merve Emre. Emre, wearing a fitted olive-green dress with archival NYRB…

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