No other 20th-century American novel did quite so much to burnish Brooklyn’s reputation. But Smith rarely saw her hometown through rose-colored glasses − and even grew to resent it.
Since 2020 there has been exponential rise in ‘virus fiction’ by a new COVID generation of authors who came out of isolation having experienced a pandemic in real time.
Peter Benchley’s classic 1974 ‘man versus beast’ blockbuster novel doubled as a scathing critique of 1970s America. Spielberg’s film made its characters likeable – and its tone into a ‘grand adventure’.
The Wolves of Eternity is remarkable – and deliberately challenging. Ranging across time and space, it muses on thinking trees, Putin’s Moscow, a Norwegian heatwave and the undead.
In this episode, Vinita sits down with two experts to break down the many layers — and Black stereotypes — in the much anticipated new film, ‘American Fiction.’
There is a long tradition in China of associating monkeys with the mind – symbolism that has helped the novel’s most memorable character, the Monkey King, find universal resonance.
‘Ex-Wife’ originally outsold ‘The Great Gatsby,’ but critics sniffed at the novel, deeming it a melodramatic period piece − even though it tackled timeless issues like gender, money and power.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author was always willing to experiment with his prose, pacing and narration, crafting an oeuvre that varied wildly in style and structure.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author is just one of many artists from Appalachia who are probing the crisis in their work, while taking pains to ensure that it doesn’t define the region and its people.
Personal ads of ‘the Agony Column’ were full of longing, tragedy and profound misfortune. Intrigue they generated has had an enduring effect on literature and film.
In Thomas Hardy’s novel The Woodlanders, the trees sing. Hardy’s exploration of the relationship between humans and trees resonates in an epoch of environmental catastrophe.