Percival Everett’s American absurd
The author behind American Fiction on rewriting Mark Twain, the evolution of racism, and his addiction to irony.
ByLiterature
Immerse yourself in the captivating world of literature with our collection of articles, offering literary analysis, book recommendations, author spotlights, and thought-provoking discussions that celebrate the written word.
A travelling tribute to James Baldwin
Also this week: Underdressed in snowy New York, the beauty of book covers, and delighting in London’s diversity.
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The Royal Society of Literature has failed us
As a former chair of the RSL, it is sad to see its mission being undermined by a new censoriousness.
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The women that books built
How the bluestockings used wit and learning to subvert a deeply misogynist culture.
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The man who lived at the end of history
Why the 20th-century intellectual Ernesto de Martino believed that we should prepare for the apocalypse.
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JGA Pocock’s days of rage
How the violent upheavals of Seventies America helped forge the greatest historian of our time.
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The discovery of Stuart Hall’s A Cure for Marriage
On the tenth anniversary of the cultural theorist’s death an unpublished manuscript sheds new light on his thinking.
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An extract from A Cure for Marriage by Stuart Hall
The cultural analysis of a popular romantic story from an issue of Woman magazine.
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Thomas Hardy’s life of desire
Why did the great novelist of female attraction create such misery in his marriages?
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The Policy Ask with Daniel Gorman: “We are in a human rights emergency”
The director of English PEN on the erosion of civil liberties, protecting free speech and calling for a ceasefire.
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On being the writer in the family
Writers exploit and rebel against their parents – but can never escape them.
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Notes on trying
For readers and writers, novels require enormous effort. Why do we persist in seeking meaning in their pages?
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The hypocrisy of Rishi’s Right
Also this week: the power of the Nativity, and why books are like batteries.
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Paul Lynch: “Nothing kills a book quicker than a writer with a message”
The Booker Prize-winning author on political fiction, the refugee crisis and the “unmistakable” timeliness of his dystopian novel Prophet Song.
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The dark prophet of our times
In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky dares to ask the question few will: do people truly desire freedom?
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Books of the year 2023
New Statesman writers and guests choose their favourite reading of the year.
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The Booker Prize is becoming irrelevant
The judging panel hasn’t picked an exciting winner in years because there simply hasn’t been one.
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AS Byatt’s hard truths
The novelist, who died last week aged 87, clung fast to realism during a time of faddish post-structuralists.
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Clemens Meyer’s lessons from history
The author on growing up in the GDR, the rise of the far-right and Germany’s “responsibility” for the conflict in…
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The calm of the sleeper train
Also this week: Samuel Beckett’s advice, and the mysteries of time and loss.
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