--- title: Jonathan Safran-Foer and Toni Morrison Lead Chipotle Cup Literature description: Authors including Jonathan Safran-Foer, Toni Morrison, and Michael Lewis are writing new stories to be put on Chipotle cups and bags. canonical: https://time.com/101032/your-chipotle-burrito-will-now-come-with-a-side-of-literature/ author: Kyle Chayka article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-15T17:08:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:09:41.753Z og:title: Your Chipotle Burrito Will Now Come With a Side of Literature og:description: Want a dollop of self-examination with your burrito bowl? og:url: https://time.com/101032/your-chipotle-burrito-will-now-come-with-a-side-of-literature/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltacb2d69afc9e6bc1/69868f78cd804d0055ccade8/chipotle-cups.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 640 og:image:height: 360 og:image:alt: chipotle cups og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Your Chipotle Burrito Will Now Come With a Side of Literature twitter:description: Want a dollop of self-examination with your burrito bowl? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltacb2d69afc9e6bc1/69868f78cd804d0055ccade8/chipotle-cups.jpg?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Your Chipotle Burrito Will Now Come With a Side of Literature > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Kyle Chayka](https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka May 15, 2014 5:08 PM UTC  Chipotle by [Kyle Chayka](https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/) ## Kyle Chayka May 15, 2014 5:08 PM UTC Eating at Chipotle solo is an experience many of us share. Even Jonathan Safran Foer—the acclaimed novelist of _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_—does it. The vegetarian author was sitting down at a Chipotle one day when he realized that he didn’t bring any reading material with him, nor did he have a smartphone. So he decided to fix that problem by [putting his own writing](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/05/chipotle-cups-will-now-have-stories-by-jonathan-safran-foer-toni-morrison-and-other-authors?mbid=social%5Ftwitter) on the restaurant tableware. Well, his own writing, plus stories from literary lights like Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, George Saunders, and Michael Lewis. “I bet a shitload of people go into your restaurants every day, and I bet some of them have very similar experiences,” Safran-Foer wrote to Chipotle’s CEO Steve Ells. “They could have a positive experience if they had access to some kind of interesting text.” Hence the fiction and non-fiction tales being printed on Chipotle cups and bags. Rather than proselytizing for carnitas burritos, which he doesn’t consume, “What interested me is 800,000 Americans of extremely diverse backgrounds having access to good writing,” the novelist told [_Vanity Fair_](http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/05/chipotle-cups-will-now-have-stories-by-jonathan-safran-foer-toni-morrison-and-other-authors?mbid=social%5Ftwitter). Safran-Foer writes a “Two-Minute Personality Test” that prompts the burrito-eater with a series of evocative and rather uncomfortable questions (that you might not want to think about while eating). Toni Morrison contributes a writerly romance described in a prose poem. Michael Lewis writes about our experience of time (as he and the reader eat a burrito, presumably). Reading while eating is great and all, but it has to be the right kind of literature for the food. Magazine articles—great. Postmodern flash fiction experiments? Probably not so much. _Grapes of Wrath_ doesn’t describe a snack, after all. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/101032/your-chipotle-burrito-will-now-come-with-a-side-of-literature/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/101032/your-chipotle-burrito-will-now-come-with-a-side-of-literature/"},"headline":"Your Chipotle Burrito Will Now Come With a Side of Literature","datePublished":"2014-05-15T17:08:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:09:41.753Z","description":"Want a dollop of self-examination with your burrito bowl?","url":"https://time.com/101032/your-chipotle-burrito-will-now-come-with-a-side-of-literature/","keywords":["Newsfeed","restaurants","Books","Authors","Fast Food","Chipotle","Literature"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltacb2d69afc9e6bc1/69868f78cd804d0055ccade8/chipotle-cups.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kyle Chayka","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/kyle-chayka/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltacb2d69afc9e6bc1/69868f78cd804d0055ccade8/chipotle-cups.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"chipotle cups","caption":"","creditText":"Chipotle","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/101032/your-chipotle-burrito-will-now-come-with-a-side-of-literature/","name":"Your Chipotle Burrito Will Now Come With a Side of Literature"}}]}] ```