Literature
Browse our essays and reviews on literature.
Elizabeth Hand’s Curious Toys
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.
Loving Latin at the End of the World
The beauty of the language should not keep us from reckoning with its history.
Got Shakespeare?
When conservatives declare the death of the English major, they highlight the need for the critical thinking skills that English departments excel at teaching.
The Other Toni Morrison
A timely new documentary celebrates Morrison’s novels but downplays the enduring power of her work as an editor and essayist.
Poland’s Forgotten Bohemian War Hero
From the bisexual demimonde of prewar Paris to investigating Soviet war crimes, Józef Czapski’s life encapsulates the extremes of twentieth-century Europe.
The Private Edward Gorey
The cult artist and author proves an evasive subject for biography, a fact that would surely have delighted him.
Monsters vs. Empire
Trump’s Space Force is a bad reboot of the old imperial fantasy of control from above.
Masters and Servants
Neel Mukherjee is part of a new generation of Indian writers dissecting postcolonialism’s failed promise of a classless society.
A Postcard from Ursula
A science fiction writer remembers his early correspondences with Ursula Le Guin.
Philip K. Dick and the Fake Humans
We live in Philip K. Dick’s future, not George Orwell’s or Aldous Huxley’s.
What Would Doctorow Do?
His novels might be read as a fictive analogue to Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States: a polyphonic chronicle of the betrayal of his country’s original promise.
Good Reader, Bad Reader
Bad readers were not born; they were created. To know them is to understand literature and politics in postwar America.
Waving at Trains
Nalo Hopkinson on the politics of dystopia, writing from the Global South, and the enduring importance of black mermaids.
Saving Orwell
He has been pressed into service of all sorts of causes, but the real Orwell remains unknown.
Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr
On this day, the Crows of the region joined the history of People, and their own history began.
Two Paths for the Personal Essay
The personal essay is not dead, but has it traded politics for style?
Get our newsletter
Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975
Registered 501(c)(3) organization
Help Us Stay Paywall-Free
Become a Member