Literary Criticism

"Writing only leads to more writing." — Colette

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  Has English Killed Global Literature?

  Chloe Garcia Roberts considers J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos’s new book on translation.

  Chloe Garcia RobertsDec 19

  • Literary Criticism

  • Nonfiction

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  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

  • Fiction

  • Literary Criticism

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  Saints of the Middlebrow

  Jon Repetti considers Jeremy Rosen’s “Genre Bending: The Plasticity of Form in Contemporary Literary Fiction.”

  Jon RepettiDec 9

  • Literary Criticism

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  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

  • LARB Lit

  • Literary Criticism

  • Politics

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  Nothing Ever Happens: “Mister Squishy” and the Year of the Sentence Diagram

  Hannah Smart writes about her attempt to diagram a 900-word sentence in David Foster Wallace’s “Mister Squishy,” and what the efforts taught her about human inertia and meaningless language.

  Hannah SmartNov 15

  • Fiction

  • Literary Criticism

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  It’s Me, Hi, I’m the Problem

  Tom Williams explores the folklore surrounding a pop star’s reputation in Elly McCausland’s “Swifterature: A Love Story.”

  Tom Williams Nov 9

  • Music

  • Literary Criticism

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  Can Tragedies Transcend Borders?

  Amy R. Wong explores Nan Z. Da’s “The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear.”

  Amy R. WongOct 23

  • History

  • Literary Criticism

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  The Problem of the Parlor

  Douglas Dowland close-reads Dan Sinykin and Johanna Winant’s new edited volume, “Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century.”

  Douglas DowlandOct 21

  • Education

  • Literary Criticism

  • Politics

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  Dogito, Ergo Sum

  Isabel Jacobs considers Aaron Schuster’s “How to Research Like a Dog: Kafka’s New Science.”

  Isabel JacobsOct 11

  • Philosophy & Religion

  • Literary Criticism

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  A Spectacle and Nothing Strange

  Jacquelyn Ardam considers Francesca Wade’s “Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife.”

  Jacquelyn ArdamOct 8

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Literary Criticism

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  Making a Killing

  Mikkel Krause Frantzen discusses the future of the financial thriller in an era of cryptocurrencies and climate crisis.

  Mikkel Krause FrantzenOct 2

  • Economics and Finance

  • Literary Criticism

  • Fiction

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  The Useless Prophet

  Anthony Curtis Adler considers the new translation of Walter Benjamin’s “On Goethe” from Stanford University Press.

  Anthony Curtis AdlerSep 16

  • Philosophy & Religion

  • Literary Criticism