What Was “Expat Lit”? What Was “Expat Lit”?
American writers have long made European misadventures the stuff of fiction, but what does it mean to be an expatriate today? Andrew Lipstein’s Something Rotten is one answer.
Jun 2, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Oscar Dorr
Reclaiming Language: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Reclaiming Language: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
Shortly before his death, The Nation spoke with the Kenyan writer about his most recent essay collection Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas.
Jun 2, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Rhoda Feng
The Place Where Millennials Go to Die The Place Where Millennials Go to Die
Vincenzo Latronico’s novel Perfection, a cutting portrait of bourgeois expats in Berlin, examines a generation's fixations and degradation in the German capital.
May 28, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Hanson O’Haver
Katie Kitamura’s Divided Selves Katie Kitamura’s Divided Selves
Her fiction are studies of fragmentation and ambivalence.
May 14, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Lovia Gyarkye
Tender, Compassionate, Crushing: The Fiction of Shulamith Firestone Tender, Compassionate, Crushing: The Fiction of Shulamith Firestone
In Airless Spaces, the feminist theorist dramatizes what happens when capitalist alienation makes everybody miserable.
May 1, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Zoe Dubno
Weike Wang’s Meticulous Satires of Identity Politics Weike Wang’s Meticulous Satires of Identity Politics
Rental House, a novel of marriage and manners, tries to make sense of how a blended family negotiates conflicts of race and class.
Apr 29, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Camille Bromley
The Poetic Life of the Online Shopper The Poetic Life of the Online Shopper
Kevin Killian’s Selected Amazon Reviews is a tender-hearted look at the art and pathos of consumerism.
Apr 23, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Lauren Stroh
Will There Ever Be Another “Great Gatsby”? Will There Ever Be Another “Great Gatsby”?
A century on, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great Jazz Age novel still speaks to what ails America.
Apr 15, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Mark Chiusano
Sigrid Nunez On and Off the Big Screen Sigrid Nunez On and Off the Big Screen
Two new films—Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door and Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend—attempt to adapt her work. Do they succeed?
Apr 9, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Chihaya
Zora Neale Hurston’s Lost Roman Epic Zora Neale Hurston’s Lost Roman Epic
In The Life of Herod the Great, we get a novel full of intrigue, betrayal, and revolution.
Apr 9, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Edna Bonhomme