All posts tagged: literary

The literary invention that places you in the chaos of war

The literary invention that places you in the chaos of war

Published by Jenni Sidey

For more than a century now, writers have attempted to put into words what it was like to serve in the trenches of the First World War: the chaos, the horror, the futility. Ernest Hemingway famously said that “the only true writing that came through during the war was in poetry,” which conveyed metaphorically what could not yet be put into prose. After the war, his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929) and other classics such as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) and Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy (1924–28) set the standard for both literature and later film. These works stripped away the nationalist romance and confronted head-on the physical and psychological toil the war took on those who fought it. More recently, Sam Mendes’ film 1917 (2019) made headlines for representing one soldier’s journey through No Man’s Land in what, thanks to clever editing, appears to be a single, uninterrupted take. Daniel Kraus’s Angel Down (2025) takes a similar approach, accomplishing through prose what 1917 does through visuals. …

5 literary classics that grapple with the void of nihilism

5 literary classics that grapple with the void of nihilism

Published by Jenni Sidey

Have you ever wondered how life could possibly be meaningful in this absurd and seemingly arbitrary world? If so, you’re not alone. The question of whether life has purpose has been debated since at least Ancient Greece, and some of the greatest minds in philosophy and literature have grappled with it and its implications. On one side of that debate is nihilism, a group of philosophies that center on rejecting the foundational ideas of other philosophies. Its most famous manifestation is existential nihilism, which holds that life is meaningless and lacks intrinsic value. This particular form of nihilism will be our focus here, but it’s worth noting that others are out there. For instance, moral nihilism rejects the idea that acts can be objectively right or wrong, a stance the philosopher J.L. Mackie argued for in 1977. Meanwhile, epistemic nihilism holds that knowledge is impossible. Plato claimed the pre-Socratic thinker Protagoras held this point of view. Exploring nihilism can be distressing. It often requires us to face the possibility that what we hold dear rests …

Allie Rowbottom’s ‘Lovers XXX’ is the definitive literary Valley porn novel

Allie Rowbottom’s ‘Lovers XXX’ is the definitive literary Valley porn novel

Published by Sam Flores

Author Allie Rowbottom didn’t watch porn until she was 20. With roommates and a bowl of popcorn, she slid in a DVD starring blue-movie queen Nina Hartley, shrieking and throwing kernels at the TV. It wasn’t until much later that she came back to the subject, privately and in earnest. “I have preferred vintage porn in my civilian viewing habits,” Rowbottom said one afternoon in April while walking barefoot along a Malibu beach. “I just like the aesthetics better.” For all the money and mythology attached to the San Fernando Valley’s porn industry, the world has remained relatively untouched by literary fiction. Rowbottom’s new novel, “Lovers XXX,” out June 2, follows two best friends’ descent into the industry’s 1980s heyday. The author spent the last three years researching and writing the period novel, set during the VHS-porn boom and primed to join the Valley arts canon alongside Paul Thomas Anderson and Haim. On the Shelf Lovers XXX By Allie RowbottomSoho Press: 384 pages, $30 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may …

Top Literary Magazine Offers Bizarre Response to Accusations That It Published an AI-Generated Short Story

Top Literary Magazine Offers Bizarre Response to Accusations That It Published an AI-Generated Short Story

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The literary world is being torn asunder after a prestigious magazine was accused of publishing an AI-generated short story. Titled “The Serpent in the Grove,” the story was published Saturday by Granta on its website after being chosen as the winner of the Commonwealth Foundation Short Story Prize for the Caribbean region. Judges praised the story, attributed to a writer identified as Jamir Nazir, for its “precise yet richly evocative language.” But readers immediately noticed suspicious things about its prose. Accusations rang out after Ethan Mollick, an associate professor at Wharton who researches AI’s impact on education, called out the story as machine-written in a social media post. The AI detector Pangram, he found, flagged it as 100 percent AI-generated. (While the capabilities of some AI detectors are dubious, Pangram claims it has 99 percent accuracy with a vanishingly small false positive rate.) Of course, your eyeballs are probably sufficient for sussing out AI writing, and many on …

Literary Prizewinners Are Facing AI Allegations. It Feels Like the New Normal

Literary Prizewinners Are Facing AI Allegations. It Feels Like the New Normal

Published by skeptic

At first, the winners of the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize for 2026 enjoyed the envy of their peers. But since their works of fiction earned this distinction, these authors have found themselves facing harsh scrutiny from the literary community, with several accused of enlisting generative artificial intelligence to write for them. The allegations have come from numerous readers, many of them writers themselves, expressing bafflement and dismay that the prize jury could have overlooked potential signs of inauthentic authorship. Each year, the Commonwealth Foundation, a nongovernmental organization in London, awards its short story prize to one writer in each of five regions: Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. One overall winner is then selected from that shortlist. Regional winners take home £2,500 (about $3,350), while the top winner, to be announced next month, claims £5,000 (about $6,700). On May 12, the respected UK literary magazine Granta published the top five 2026 entries—all previously unpublished, per the rules of the contest—on its website. (It has hosted the winning submissions for the …

If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn review – how on earth do you translate Shakespeare? | Literary criticism

If This Be Magic by Daniel Hahn review – how on earth do you translate Shakespeare? | Literary criticism

Published by Sam Flores

The great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who translated William Faulkner, André Gide, Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf into Spanish, drew the line at Shakespeare. Speaking of the moment when Hamlet asks the ghost why it returns to haunt “the glimpses of the moon”, Borges commented: “I don’t think it can be translated. Perhaps the words can be translated. Certainly Shakespeare cannot be translated. ‘The glimpses of the moon’ means exactly ‘the glimpses of the moon’.” All, however, is not lost. “It has been said that Shakespeare cannot be translated into any other language,” Borges added. “But Shakespeare cannot be translated into English, either, since he wrote what [Robert Louis] Stevenson called ‘that amazing dialect, the Shakespeare-ese’.” This might not be entirely true, as the translator Daniel Hahn points out in this superbly diverting book. Recalling a hip-hop production of Romeo and Juliet he once saw, he persuades us instantly that “the phrase ‘Do you kiss your teeth at me, fam?’ proved to be a perfect translation of ‘Do you bite your thumb at us, …

Literary Mysteries

Literary Mysteries

Published by José Betancourt

Imagine a buffet, filled with all your favorite dishes. You grab a plate and put just a little of this, a little of that, then sit back down at your table with the crispiest Diet Coke and have the best meal of your life. That is how I feel when I’m reading a really good book. To me, the best books are compelling and detailed with interesting characters and have lush prose.  Now, I love a mystery that falls into a formula. I love literary fiction that meanders and ponders.  But it is like a perfectly cooked steak when an author writes a literary mystery well. Literary mysteries are all about the layered context, the subtle clues, the secrets. For tonight’s menu, I’ve prepared a selection of some of the tastiest literary mysteries.  We want to hear from you! As we move through 2026, we want to make sure Book Riot remains your go-to destination for all things bookish. Whether you’re here for the curated recommendations, latest industry news, or deep dives into reading culture, your feedback informs our media …

Picture Books Introducing Literary Legends to Young Readers

Picture Books Introducing Literary Legends to Young Readers

Published by José Betancourt

Picture books are the best way to get kids excited about reading. But these picture books go one step further and will get them excited about important authors. These five, relatively recently published picture books feature the true stories of literary legends. Some of the biographical picture books describe authors of children’s books, like Judy Blume, A.A. Milne, and the lesser-known—but equally legendary—Virginia Hamilton. The other two books feature the stories of Mary Oliver and Toni Morrison, who wrote primarily for adults. But they all celebrate books and the creative process. Because these books don’t just introduce young readers and listeners to five literary legends. They also celebrate writing, storytelling, and the importance of every person finding their own voice. So to be entertained, educated, and inspired, pick up one, or all, of the following books. Otherwise Known as Judy the Great: A Poetic Ode to Judy Blume by Selina Alko Judy Blume is a beloved and bestselling author of books for kids and adults. Her books have sold over 80 million copies all around …

Inside Australia’s Most Infamous Literary Hoax

Inside Australia’s Most Infamous Literary Hoax

Published by José Betancourt

This was most likely more true in Australia, as they were about two decades behind more internationally famous literary figures associated with modernism, such as Virginia Woolf or Dorothy Parker, both of whom found fame in the post-World War I era. Enter McAuley and Stewart, two writers who were more conservative in their approach to art. They derided the kind of literature and poetry that Harris and his gang published in Angry Penguins, which largely swept Australian literary culture, as far as influence went. Having recently had some of their own work rejected by publications, McAuley and Stewart joined forces to make a mockery out of Harris and Angry Penguins, if they could manage it. So, over the course of one day, they invented both a deceased fictional poet and his entire body of work. Ernest Lalor “Ern” Malley was born in Liverpool in March 1918. His father died young, and his mother moved him and his sister Ethel to Sydney, Australia, thereafter. Unbeknownst to his family and friends, Malley wrote poetry in his spare …

‘Lord of the Flies’ reminded me to resist my literary narcissism : NPR

‘Lord of the Flies’ reminded me to resist my literary narcissism : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

David McKenna as Piggy in Netflix’s new Lord of the Flies adaptation. J Redza/Eleven/Sony Pictures Television hide caption toggle caption J Redza/Eleven/Sony Pictures Television Watching Netflix’s new adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, I found myself struggling. Grappling might be the better word, actually. I wasn’t grappling with the show itself, an ambitious, gorgeously shot if ultimately thin take on a book I absolutely hated, back in ninth grade when my fellow classmates and I got pedagogically frog-marched through its ham-fisted symbolism. (“What do Piggy’s spectacles represent? Write 500 words.”) The new series’ creator, Jack Thorne, co-created Adolescence, last year’s grim chronicle of youth and violence and masculinity — hey, guy’s got a niche. What I was grappling with was my own reaction to the show — namely, how the only character I could manage to care about was Piggy, the brainy, bespectacled fat kid who’s forever carping about looking out for others, fire safety and finding water. (In both the series and in Golding’s book, he represents civilization, judicious restraint, the voice …