realism

  • Writers in the Hemingway Tradition

    If you’re watching Lynn Novick and Ken Burns’ documentary Hemingway this week on PBS, you’ve heard a lot of writers and commentators talking about what a profound influence Ernest Hemingway has had on American literature. As the writer Tobias Wolff puts it, “It’s hard to imagine a writer today who hasn’t been in some way… Continue reading

  • Everything and the Kitchen Sink: Social Realism in post-war Britain

    The rain falls hard on a humdrum town This town has dragged you down And everybody’s got to live their life And God knows I’ve got to live mine… So goes the opening verse of The Smiths‘ classic song, “William, It Was Really Nothing,” a brilliant pastiche of British post-war, kitchen sink dramas. The Manchester… Continue reading