From The Atlantic, the summer fiction issue is out, including an essay on how literary awards are inherently subjective, but they are also the most powerful antidote we have to the decline of serious fiction; in fiction, details matter — but only imagination can illuminate the human soul; and does a national literature still have meaning in an age of open borders and polyglot cultures? Margaret Atwood, Joseph O’Neill, Monica Ali, and Anne Michaels consider the question. A review of On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction by Brian Boyd. From Bookforum, Craig Seligman on first novels: "There's also the pleasure — one part malice, nine parts love — of seeing our gorgeous friends in their gawky adolescence"; and Morris Dickstein on political fiction: "Today’s headlines make a poor backdrop for tomorrow’s fiction". Please, dear novelists, get real: How many great novels are going unwritten today, because novelists are not being urged to make journeys into reality? Dangerous dykes: Have lesbian writers cracked the male-dominated crime fiction genre? Here are surprising facts about 15 best-selling authors. An interview with John O'Brien, publisher of Dalkey Archive Press, on what's new and exciting in literature after almost 30 years (and part 2).
