Fiction

Gayl Jones’s Epic of Liberation

Gayl Jones’s Epic of Liberation Gayl Jones’s Epic of Liberation

In her new novel, Jones offers a story of slavery and freedom in the Americas.

Nov 29, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Farah Jasmine Griffin

Oil pumpjacks

When Real Life Feels More Like Science Fiction When Real Life Feels More Like Science Fiction

As almost happened in The War of the Worlds, we could kiss this planet goodbye—and if that’s not science fiction transformed into fact of the first order, what is?

Nov 26, 2021 / Tom Engelhardt

Dennis Cooper In A Loft In Soho, New York City.

Dennis Cooper’s Love Story of a Lifetime Dennis Cooper’s Love Story of a Lifetime

His new book, I Wished, asks: What can a novel do in the service of remembering a lost love?

Nov 26, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Kate Wolf

Protest Outside The Eleonas Refugee Camp In Athens

Omar El Akkad’s Odyssey of Hope  Omar El Akkad’s Odyssey of Hope 

His recent novel What Strange Paradise examines the personal and political toll of the refugee crisis.

Nov 8, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Adil Bhat

Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson in PASSING

What “Passing” Can Still Teach Us About Identity What “Passing” Can Still Teach Us About Identity

A film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s novel dramatizes the mercurial and sometimes dangerous consequences of a person's performance of self in the public.

Nov 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques

Francisco Goldman’s Altered States

Francisco Goldman’s Altered States Francisco Goldman’s Altered States

In his new novel, Goldman asks readers to question the very essence of how we define ourselves. 

Nov 2, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Ed Morales

The Moral and Magical Political Fictions of Carolina de Robertis

The Moral and Magical Political Fictions of Carolina de Robertis The Moral and Magical Political Fictions of Carolina de Robertis

The Uruguayan American novelist’s The President and the Frog asks us to consider: What does it mean to be a good political actor?

Oct 29, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer

A family watches the solar eclipse in Germany, 1999.

Richard Powers’s Radical Parenting Lessons Richard Powers’s Radical Parenting Lessons

His new novel Bewilderment examines the challenges of raising a child in a slowly dying world.

Oct 25, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Adams

Jonathan Franzen’s God

Jonathan Franzen’s God Jonathan Franzen’s God

A multigenerational saga about a Midwestern family, Crossroads is like most of Franzen novels—with one exception: Every plotline leads to the big guy himself.

Oct 18, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Rumaan Alam

Anthony Veasna So’s Portraits of Diaspora

Anthony Veasna So’s Portraits of Diaspora Anthony Veasna So’s Portraits of Diaspora

His posthumous collection Afterparties is part of a new wave of writing on the cultural memory and historical traumas of Southeast Asian immigrants. 

Oct 5, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Larissa Pham

x