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
When Time Stopped Forever When Time Stopped Forever
Han Kang’s new novel mines the violent past and uncertain future of South Korean politics.
Feb 22, 2017 / Books & the Arts / E. Tammy Kim
Sick for Home, Nauseated by Home Sick for Home, Nauseated by Home
The lens of Ottessa Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World is, almost without exception, fitted close-up on conversations, petty rumination, and squalid interiors.
Feb 14, 2017 / Hannah Gold
Adam Thirlwell on the Many Moods of Henry Green Adam Thirlwell on the Many Moods of Henry Green
For the English novelist, life itself was a deadly business.
Feb 2, 2017 / Books & the Arts / Adam Thirlwell
Donald Trump’s Strategy? Destroy the International Community in Order to Save It. Donald Trump’s Strategy? Destroy the International Community in Order to Save It.
The new president has a wrecking ball, and “internationalism” is written all over it.
Jan 24, 2017 / John Feffer
A Catalog of Cadavers A Catalog of Cadavers
Claudia Salazar Jiménez sets out to conjure the experience of atrocity in Peru with her debut novel, Blood of the Dawn. The result is disquieting—though not in the way you’d e...
Dec 30, 2016 / Ratik Asokan