There’s whimsy associated with Colson Whitehead’s writing style—a willingness to play. Nonetheless, the darker reality of race in the United States has always been an important aspect of the stories he tells (whether about zombies or elevator inspectors). Even in his prize-winning novel, The Underground Railroad (2016), the brutality of Whitehead's devasting portrait of slavery in America is mitigated by…
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‘Mrs. Dalloway’ by Virginia Woolf: Death and the Isolated Mind
Virginia Woolf’s second novel, Mrs. Dalloway (1925), is many things. On one level, it’s a psychological portrait of London’s residents after the first World War. On another, it’s a love triangle, but long after the drama has concluded, and when all that’s left is dust. Doubtless, it is a feat of high modernism, displaying a trademark love of interior exploration…
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‘The Diamond Age’ by Neal Stephenson: A Nanopunk Fairytale
Neal Stephenson is an American speculative fiction author descended from a line of scientists and engineers. His work often lands in the (post-) cyberpunk genre which is best illustrated by William Gibson—whose works popularly inspired the Matrix films. Cyberpunk stories present a future world buoyed by an advanced technological culture which is contrasted by a radical, subversive or dystopic society. In other…
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‘Under the Feet of Jesus’ by Helena María Viramontes: A Sentimental Chicanx Bildungsroman
Helena Maria Viramontes is a widely anthologised Chicanx author and professor of English at Cornell University. A key figure in the literary community, her work is a major feature of the Latinx cannon and widely read in circles outside of the traditional (often color- and gender-washed) vein. Born in East LA in the 1950s, Viramontes’ work is a reflection of the social…
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Colson Whitehead’s ‘Zone One’: Rebranding Survival in the Zombie Apocalypse
One year after the end of the world, the remains of humanity are banding back together and the era of reconstruction is about to begin. Rebranded as the American Phoenix (pheenies, for short), earth’s remaining survivors of the plague that brought on the zombie apocalypse are taking advantage of the lull in attacks and stitching together what’s left of society.…
