Zadie Smith became an instant phenomenon when her bestselling debut novel White Teeth was published at the tender age of 25. Instantly hailed as “the new Salman Rushdie,” it was clear that an astonishing contemporary writing talent had arrived. That…
What links book-burning, ultraviolence, and Québécois radicals? Famously banned, and notoriously cynical, Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel is part of an anti-tradition of books that ask us to be a free thinker in a world full of drones. Weaving science fiction…
“Big brother is watching you…” the utterance has come to encapsulate the terrifying yoke of state power in the 20th century. Orwell’s vision of a horrifying future was written in 1948 amidst the rising forces of fascism and communism, but…
From early anguished works to coming-out classics, the lesbian canon is rich in literary significance. At a time when there have never been so many prominent mainstream stories of lesbian love coming out on big and small screens, women have…
The novel was born in the 18th century, but it reached maturity in the 19th century. With early Bildungsroman novels still playing second fiddle to poetry, it wasn’t until the 1800s that the novel really came into its own. Eliot,…