Percival Everett’s Abstract Art Percival Everett’s Abstract Art
His new novel, So Much Blue, is a meditation on seeing and abstraction, and it might be key for recognizing a new form of literary social critique.
Jun 26, 2017 / Paul Devlin
J.M. Coetzee’s Essential Protestantism J.M. Coetzee’s Essential Protestantism
In his last two novels, Coetzee has tried to recover the scandal and strangeness of early Christianity.
Jun 1, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Adam Kirsch
What Herman Melville Can Teach Us About the Trump Era What Herman Melville Can Teach Us About the Trump Era
He would point out that what plagues us are the sins of the past coming home to roost: America’s tolerance of bigotry and blindness to its own faults.
May 10, 2017 / Ariel Dorfman
George Saunders’s Lincoln George Saunders’s Lincoln
The novel ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ examines the Civil War as the root of America’s violent past—and as a possible source of empathy that might release us from it.
May 3, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Jon Baskin
Hwang Jungeun’s Noisy, Crowded Space Hwang Jungeun’s Noisy, Crowded Space
It’s rare for a novel to be so dense in social meaning, and yet so lightly composed.
Apr 14, 2017 / E. Tammy Kim
Ali Smith’s Novel of Disintegration Ali Smith’s Novel of Disintegration
One of Autumn’s recurring themes is our willed blindness to what threatens our sense of order—from climate change to financial and political insecurity.
Mar 29, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Namara Smith
Elif Batuman’s Bold and Defiantly Imperfect novel Elif Batuman’s Bold and Defiantly Imperfect novel
Elif Batuman’s debut novel reminds us that part of the novel’s genius that it made room for the extraneous and the unplanned
Mar 22, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Evan Kindley
Caught Between Modernity and Tradition Caught Between Modernity and Tradition
With sympathy and ruthlessness, U.R. Ananthamurthy’s novel Samskara gives shape to the mutinies that raged within mid-century India.
Mar 20, 2017 / Ratik Asokan
Trump’s America Is Like a Dystopian Novel, With One Importance Difference Trump’s America Is Like a Dystopian Novel, With One Importance Difference
We’re not readers, but active participants—with the ability to rewrite the ending.
Mar 13, 2017 / John Feffer
Trump Doesn’t Realize These Are Wars We Cannot Win Trump Doesn’t Realize These Are Wars We Cannot Win
From Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII to today’s Afghanistan, America has developed a dangerous obsession with “winning.”
Mar 7, 2017 / Rebecca Gordon