Archive
The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.
The lurid pathology of Patrick McGrath's fiction - its endless procession of madmen, derelicts, and misguided psychiatrists - can often blind us to the fact that he is first of all a historical novelist - and a great one.
Read MoreLord Castlereagh lives in infamy as the target of the Romantic Poets' most vicious insults, but one biography tries to salvage his reputation. Was the statesman a scourge of liberalism or pragmatist of Enlightenment ideals?
Read More"I made no particular effort to keep the portrait of Byron consistent from one novel to another. I wanted to show him in different lights, from different angles." Joshua Lustig interviews the author of the esteemed Byron Trilogy.
Read MoreUmberto Eco's potboiling new novel The Prague Cemetery was denounced in Europe for anti-Semitism, and then went on to become a best-seller. Is the controversy valid? What strange creation has Eco brought forth?
Read MoreNovelist António Lobo Antunes' books are searing and wildly original indictments of Portugal's needlessly protracted and bloody colonization of Angola.
Read MoreColonialism, feminism, witchcraft, the Lord of Darkness — themes such as these once made Sylvia Townsend Warner's novels bestsellers. Now her charmingly subversive fiction is back in print.
Read MoreThe larger-than-life exploits of Lord Byron drew an erratic and daunting trajectory through the lives of those nearest him. A trilogy of novels attempts to go where so many biographies have gone before.
Read MoreVisionary novelist J.G. Ballard's penultimate book "Millennium People," about an outbreak of middle-class revolution and terrorism, has finally been published in the U.S.
Read MoreFrench trailblazer Raymond Roussel created teeming and fertile worlds from a secret process of wordplay. Two of his most spectacular works are coming back into print after a long, undeserved absence.
Read MoreHow to write a great novel of the financial crisis? One contender has published his attempt, and it features an updated version of that bugbear figure from Shakespeare and Trollope: the Jewish banker.
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