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Tag: Literature

Browse our essays and reviews on literature.

AI-generated novels are here, but they hardly spell the end of fiction.

Terry Nguyen

Lionel Trilling crystallizes the cynical Cold War liberalism that sacrificed idealism for self-restraint.

Samuel Moyn

The novel Kindred reminds us—emphatically, gruesomely—that white supremacy is us too.

Junot Díaz

In her scholarship, mentoring, and activism, Farah Jasmine Griffin brings a praxis of radical love to an unequal academy.

Robin D. G. Kelley

László Krasznahorkai’s latest novel reflects on the power of the surveillance state through the perspective of a librarian who wishes to lock up all books.

Tadhg Larabee

In her new book, Danish poet Olga Ravn writes with open love, pity, and compassion for her strange yet familiar creations.

John Crowley

A new book offers a compelling, if imperfect, account of the bad feelings with which trans people often struggle.

Jules Joanne Gleeson

Why groundbreaking queer studies scholar Leo Bersani rejected the word “queer.”

Jack Parlett
Some feminists think we can improve motherhood. But what if abolishing it is the only way to alleviate its problems?
Judith Levine
Known mainly as a realist, the writer used the gothic form to explore the horror of being confined by gender.
Jennifer R. Bernstein
Two recent essay collections explore the interplay between literary genre and a rapidly changing planet.
Marissa Grunes
Marlon James discusses writing realistic Black characters, being inspired by African folktales, and why we don’t have to let go of the world of make-believe to tell serious stories.
Nate File, Marlon James
A recording of our virtual literary event with three generations of Black women writers.

Toni Morrison’s novels imagine a society governed by an ethic of care, devoted to restoring and repairing those who have been harmed, and giving them the space for transformation.

Farah Jasmine Griffin

A recent government report gave UFOs a rebrand, but so many basic questions remain unanswered.

John Crowley

Newly translated into English, Minae Mizumura’s An I-Novel is a vivid portrait of immigrant displacement and the ironies of our global cultural ecosystem.

Houman Barekat

Simone de Beauvoir’s relationship with her readers was a mutually demanding collaboration.

Vivian Gornick

Michel Houellebecq’s Islamophobia and chauvinism have made him a favorite intellectual of right extremists. So why does he appeal to so many on the left as well?

Martin Gelin

The Florentine humanist’s description of the Black Death in the Decameron remains one of the most thoughtful accounts of a society living under a pandemic.

Garth Greenwell’s Cleanness movingly depicts the vulnerabilities of queer desire, but it also continues a long tradition of exoticizing Eastern European sexuality.

Marta Figlerowicz
An ancient pilgrimage route inspires a project of cooperative storytelling which pairs writers with detained immigrants, such as the Mexican horticulturalist in this story.
David Herd, Lytton Smith
Celebrated novelists John Crowley and Elizabeth Hand discuss Hand’s new novel and the ways that historical fiction can and cannot answer our questions about the past.
Elizabeth Hand, John Crowley

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