literalab

Does literature, and specifically reading novels, lead to a more tolerant and non-violent world? This seems to be the argument implied in Elaine Scarry’s unfortunately titled “Poetry Changed the World” in The Boston Review. Scarry writes about “literature’s capacity to reduce harm,” extrapolating her points from Steven Pinker’s much-publicized recent work of scholarly wishful thinking, […]

I write about the American-European literary divide often enough, and just as often hear from people convinced that no such thing exists. Yesterday though another compelling piece of evidence that it does reached my inbox. It was the announcement of the winner of the Boston Review’s 2012 Aura Estrada Short Story Contest. Now I realize […]