In this week's issue:

- 308 French authors quit a major publisher to stop a billionaire's ideological capture of cultural institutions

- Ben Lerner's new novel *Transcription* argues that when technology fails, genuine conversation becomes possible again

- Anthropic just settled a copyright lawsuit for $1.5 billion—the largest in history—but authors are calling it inadequate

- Samuel Moyn names the real crisis: America's political system is paralyzed by gerontocracy, and no one has a succession