The Dogged, Irrational Persistence of Literary Fiction

Literature is fragile. It serves no obvious purpose. But it is also as close to immortal as any cultural endeavor has ever ...
The New York Times

With the Nobel Prize in Literature, Greatness Is Not the Same as Popularity

As the Nobel Committee gets ready to admit a new writer into the pantheon, our critic asks: Is greatness overrated? Critic’s Notebook As the Nobel Committee gets ready to admit a new writer into the ...
Psychology Today

What Is Lost When Literature Is Not Taught in Our Schools?

Recently, whenever I reference the titles of literary classics in my English courses, I am usually met with blank stares. Many college-age students have never read or studied these works of literature ...

How to win the Nobel Prize in Literature

Author and critic Lincoln Michel talks about Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai's Nobel win and what it shows about who gets recognized in world literature.
New Republic

Nobel Committee Chair Anders Olsson on the “Renovation” of the Prize for Literature

On Thursday, the Nobel Prize in literature will be awarded for the 118th time—and for the fourth since it was suspended in 2017 amid a rash of scandals involving sexual assault and gambling. The ...
The Nation

A Profession!

The scene: a graduate seminar in literature sometime in the eerily becalmed days of the mid-1990s, when for an aspirant to an academic job, the future seemed poised to break in one of two ...