American Literature

Tribute / Remembering Melville in his bicentenary year

Melville's critics, inevitably, panned him for what he had characterised self-deprecatingly and in his frustration as his fictional "botches," although his works were rarely that.

Cormac McCarthy: A great American novelist

For a nation that cannot boast of a Cervantes or Rabindranath, there will always be a need to find an All-American, a unifier who assures them of their place in the hallowed halls of literature. Cormac McCarthy, more than any other writer of his generation, was equipped to shoulder that title.

Boats against the current: Reconciling the Dhaka of old with the new

Nadeem Zaman’s The Inheritors retells and recontextualizes one of the most famous stories there ever was—F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).

Harper Lee, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' author, dies at 89

Harper Lee, who wrote one of America's most enduring literary classics, To Kill a Mockingbird, and surprised readers 55 years later with the publication of a second book about the same characters, dies at the age of 89 on Friday.

August 29, 2023
August 29, 2023

Remembering Melville in his bicentenary year

Melville's critics, inevitably, panned him for what he had characterised self-deprecatingly and in his frustration as his fictional "botches," although his works were rarely that.

June 19, 2023
June 19, 2023

Cormac McCarthy: A great American novelist

For a nation that cannot boast of a Cervantes or Rabindranath, there will always be a need to find an All-American, a unifier who assures them of their place in the hallowed halls of literature. Cormac McCarthy, more than any other writer of his generation, was equipped to shoulder that title.

April 27, 2023
April 27, 2023

Boats against the current: Reconciling the Dhaka of old with the new

Nadeem Zaman’s The Inheritors retells and recontextualizes one of the most famous stories there ever was—F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).

February 20, 2016
February 20, 2016

Harper Lee, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' author, dies at 89

Harper Lee, who wrote one of America's most enduring literary classics, To Kill a Mockingbird, and surprised readers 55 years later with the publication of a second book about the same characters, dies at the age of 89 on Friday.