Literary Fiction

Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe brings the novelist career of his literary alter-ego, Kogito Choko, to a close with the publication of his new novel, the most recent in the series, Death by Water

Very few of the books published in the United States each year are works in translation.

John Irving, now in his early seventies, has been encouraging readers to think of him as the contemporary Dickens for more than four decades.

“the best book this year . . . when it comes to literature.”

In an author’s note to his intense and amazing new collection of short fiction, Colum McCann writes:

“Our private lives are like a colony of worlds expanding . . .

Ronald Reagan was just 69 days into his presidency when John Hinckley, Jr., greeted him outside an AFL–CIO conference by firing six shots from a .22 caliber revolver.

“It’s such a confusing thing, what’s okay and what isn’t okay and what’s accepted and who’s a whore. It’s a furious balance.”

Nothing says exceptionalism like a debut author winning a two-million-dollar advance.

King David comes alive in a deeply emotional “novel” that tackles the man and the myth in an ambitious sweep of history and lore.

Oreo, the heroine of the title, is raised by maternal grandparents. She is the daughter of a white Jewish deadbeat father and a black actress mother, who is constantly on tour.

A small-time gangster who has disappeared and may be dead. Hasidic folk tales. A yarmulke-wearing Oberlin College student expelled for drug dealing. Hedge-fund fraud.

“It’s not a bad little novel, by most reckonings, but from William Boyd it’s a disappointment.”