Literary Fiction Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/literary-fiction/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:10:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Literary Fiction Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/literary-fiction/ 32 32 The Empty Lab, in Science and in Fiction https://www.publicbooks.org/the-empty-lab-in-science-and-in-fiction/ Wed, 10 Dec 2025 16:00:28 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=61283 When literature refuses readers entry into the laboratory, it fosters suspicions of science itself.

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]]> Can Literary Fiction Save Classical Music? https://www.publicbooks.org/can-literary-fiction-save-classical-music/ Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:00:51 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=61309 Classical music’s most troubling traditions include erasing Black performers, abusing and harassing in conservatories, and refusing to acknowledge physical injuries.

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]]> What Future for Native Sovereignty? https://www.publicbooks.org/what-future-for-native-sovereignty/ Wed, 03 Dec 2025 16:00:31 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=61225 What does it mean to seek shelter on stolen land? asks Jon Hickey's new novel, Big Chief.

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]]> The Past as a Site of Radical Otherness in Nishant Batsha’s “A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart” https://www.publicbooks.org/the-past-as-a-site-of-radical-otherness-in-nishant-batshas-a-bomb-placed-close-to-the-heart/ Wed, 29 Oct 2025 15:00:23 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=61000 “I am a novelist first and a historian second. That’s how the tension you mention resolves itself: I know I’m trying to tell a story.”

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]]> “Conjuring and Reality”: An Interview with Jeanne Thornton https://www.publicbooks.org/conjuring-and-reality-an-interview-with-jeanne-thornton/ Thu, 02 Oct 2025 15:00:21 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60791 “Pronouncing a sentence about a person, wrapping them up in your narrative, can be a very gracious action, or a cruel one, or probably most often both.”

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]]> “Weird, but Fantastic”: Devoney Looser on Those Who Love Jane Austen https://www.publicbooks.org/weird-but-fantastic-devoney-looser-on-those-who-love-jane-austen/ Tue, 02 Sep 2025 15:00:59 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60522 “The Austen biography space is fairly saturated and covered. But there’s still a lot more we can learn by seeing her in context: that is, by seeing Austen in relation to her society, her family, her friends.”

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]]> Mute Compulsion https://www.publicbooks.org/mute-compulsion/ Tue, 05 Aug 2025 15:00:48 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60381 The trauma plot and the slut-shaming dossier are actually parallel formations, reveals “The Guest.”

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]]> J. M. Coetzee’s “Disgrace” @ 25: A Roundtable https://www.publicbooks.org/j-m-coetzees-disgrace-25-a-roundtable/ Tue, 29 Jul 2025 15:00:58 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60324 What freshly nuanced perspectives might we bring to the violent late 20th-century history Coetzee describes?

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]]> “Can the Dead Save the Living?”: Reading Han Kang During South Korea’s Martial Law Crisis https://www.publicbooks.org/han-kang-we-do-not-part-south-korea-martial-law-crisis/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 15:00:27 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60079 Can literature, by preserving past trauma, stop history from repeating itself?

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]]> The Scenery of the Crime https://www.publicbooks.org/the-scenery-of-the-crime/ Wed, 02 Jul 2025 15:00:15 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60049 Opera demands a generous sense of the preposterous. So too does the mystery novel.

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