Literary Criticism

"Writing only leads to more writing." — Colette

A Fiction of Global Terror
Timothy Rideout’s new book shows how precarity among the middle and working classes powers the fears at the heart of 21st-century gothic literature.
Tracy Fernandez RysavyFeb 19
Making a Literary Future with Artificial Intelligence
Five writers and AI researchers discuss the future of literature.
Dashiel Carrera, Katy Gero, Christian Bök, Nick Montfort, Amy CatanzanoFeb 14
- Science & Technology
- Literary Criticism
Really Classical Figures
In the wake of Bob Weir’s death, a new book emerges on the Grateful Dead’s overlooked engagement with literature.
Christian KriticosFeb 12
- Music
- Literary Criticism
The Crisis at the Heart of Modernity
Terry Eagleton’s recent book employs his trademark witty style in an attempt to say something new about the era that birthed modernism.
Arleen IonescuFeb 9
- Cultural Studies
- Literary Criticism
Incredible Prophecies, Sick Truths
Oedipal iterations, from Sophocles to Arundhati Roy.
Ankhi MukherjeeFeb 6
- History
- Literary Criticism
The Kingdom in His Head
Aran Ward Sell reconsiders the legacy and complex overlapping ‘failures’ of Mervyn Peake’s final novel, ‘Titus Alone.’
Aran Ward SellJan 19
- SF
- Literary Criticism
Not Exactly a Thesis
Brais Lamela explores fiction, history, and the slipperiness of the nonfiction novel in ‘What Remains,’ newly translated by Jacob Rogers.
Michael BarronJan 15
- Literary Criticism
- Fiction
The Long Breath of the World
On László Krasznahorkai’s sentences and what they require of us.
Nyuol Lueth TongJan 14
- Literary Criticism
- Fiction
Has English Killed Global Literature?
Chloe Garcia Roberts considers J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos’s new book on translation.
Chloe Garcia RobertsDec 19, 2025
- Literary Criticism
- Nonfiction
Still Got It
Zach Gibson meditates on “late style” in the work of postmodernists like Thomas Pynchon who are still publishing well into their eighties.
Zach GibsonDec 14, 2025
- Fiction
- Literary Criticism
Saints of the Middlebrow
Jon Repetti considers Jeremy Rosen’s “Genre Bending: The Plasticity of Form in Contemporary Literary Fiction.”
Jon RepettiDec 9, 2025
- Literary Criticism
Don’t Close Your Teeth
Cynthia Zarin traces the rise of fascism through the diary entries of Virginia Woolf, in an essay from LARB Quarterly no. 47: “Security.”
Cynthia ZarinNov 17, 2025