Novel Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/novel/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:10:24 +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 Novel Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/tag/novel/ 32 32 Dark Academia Grows Up https://www.publicbooks.org/dark-academia-grows-up/ Thu, 04 Sep 2025 15:00:57 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60531 R. F. Kuang uses the confluence of romantasy, academic satire, and dark academia to pose a more interesting set of questions. To wit: What is the magic that scholars find in the academy?

The post Dark Academia Grows Up appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “I Will Write to Avenge My Race”: Baglin, Louis, and Ernaux on Class Transition https://www.publicbooks.org/i-will-write-to-avenge-my-race-baglin-louis-and-ernaux-on-class-transition/ Wed, 13 Aug 2025 15:00:57 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60421 “When people write about the working-class world, which they rarely do, it is most often because they have left it behind,” admits Didier Eribon, in his 2009 French memoir of class transition, Returning to Reims. “They thereby contribute to perpetuating the social illegitimacy of the people they are speaking of in the very moment of […]

The post “I Will Write to Avenge My Race”: Baglin, Louis, and Ernaux on Class Transition appeared first on Public Books.

]]> 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.”

The post Mute Compulsion appeared first on Public Books.

]]> Once upon a Time in Tenoxtitlan https://www.publicbooks.org/once-upon-a-time-in-tenoxtitlan/ Wed, 30 Jul 2025 15:00:00 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60312 Two novels published in 2024 return to some of the best-known, canonical figures and episodes from Mexico’s past.

The post Once upon a Time in Tenoxtitlan appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “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?

The post “Can the Dead Save the Living?”: Reading Han Kang During South Korea’s Martial Law Crisis appeared first on Public Books.

]]> Time Interpolated https://www.publicbooks.org/time-interpolated/ Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:00:37 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=60000 Disruptive and restorative, interpolation is the paradoxical form of life, literature, and time itself.

The post Time Interpolated appeared first on Public Books.

]]> We Better Laugh About It: Álvaro Enrigue and Maia Gil’Adí https://www.publicbooks.org/we-better-laugh-about-it-alvaro-enrigue-and-maia-giladi/ Fri, 06 Jun 2025 15:00:39 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59915 Our partner podcast Novel Dialogue invites a novelist and a literary critic to talk about novels from every angle: how we read them, write them, publish them, and remember them. This season’s signature question is: If you could spend a year anywhere, where, when, and how would you spend it? Álvaro Enrigue and critic Maia Gil’Adí […]

The post We Better Laugh About It: Álvaro Enrigue and Maia Gil’Adí appeared first on Public Books.

]]> Who Owns These Tools?: Vauhini Vara and Aarthi Vadde https://www.publicbooks.org/who-owns-these-tools-vauhini-vara-and-aarthi-vadde/ Fri, 23 May 2025 15:00:27 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59801 “The desire for that sort of purist kind of connection that one might call communion, is something that I'm interested in in all of my work.”

The post Who Owns These Tools?: Vauhini Vara and Aarthi Vadde appeared first on Public Books.

]]> Aria Aber’s Defiant Love Letter to Berlin https://www.publicbooks.org/aria-abers-defiant-love-letter-to-berlin/ Tue, 29 Apr 2025 15:00:56 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59612 “The experiences of coming of age and coming into art—of finding your own voice and a vision for your craft—are spiritual and psychological journeys, and, for lack of a better word, universal.”

The post Aria Aber’s Defiant Love Letter to Berlin appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “Who Made These Rules?”: Claire Messud on What’s Distracting from Good Writing https://www.publicbooks.org/who-made-these-rules-claire-messud-on-whats-distracting-from-good-writing/ Tue, 18 Feb 2025 16:00:27 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=58955 “I believe in the amazing complexities of what we can express and convey in language if people will only make the effort and take the time.”

The post “Who Made These Rules?”: Claire Messud on What’s Distracting from Good Writing appeared first on Public Books.

]]>