literature | The Walrus

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Hotline Proves Happy Endings Are Still Worth Writing

June 6, 2022June 9, 2022 - by Amanda Perry

Fiction about immigrants tends toward melancholy and tragedy. Dimitri Nasrallah’s new novel delivers something different

A woman reads a book with a skull and crossbones on it unaware of a giant creature preparing to eat her just behind her.

Books

Horror, Horror Everywhere: New Books Are Shaking the Genre to Its Core

May 19, 2022October 28, 2022 - by Danny Jacobs

Writers are taking spooky books to places they’ve never gone before

Colourful marker illustration of Sheila Heti.

Books / May 2022

Sometimes Baffling, Sometimes Sublime: Sheila Heti’s Pure Colour

March 9, 2022May 2, 2022 - by Myra Bloom

The author sets out to process the loss of a father—and ends up reimagining the universe

Books / March/April 2022

Bad Company: A New Novel Strips Away the Veneer of Progressive Rhetoric

February 15, 2022April 30, 2022 - by Irina Dumitrescu

Naben Ruthnum takes on diversity charades, token promotions, and the social justice facades of corporations

Illustration of a white floating bust against a scenic background of water and mountains. A main is climbing a ladder into the bust, which is filled with books.

Health / January/February 2022

Textual Healing: The Novel World of Bibliotherapy

January 7, 2022April 30, 2022 - by Katrya Bolger

How literature is helping people navigate mental health issues

A Puritan man in a dark hat and cloak holds open a book and in his shadow stand three scared women huddled together.

Arts & Culture / Books

The Year of Witch Lit: Weird Women Dominated New Stories of Suspicion and Rupture

December 17, 2021April 30, 2022 - by Alix Hawley

Three novels about confusion, distrust, and fear mirror our pandemic moment

Illustration of a woman reading a long scroll as a man continues writing on it with a feather-tipped quill.

Books / December 2021

The New Pamphleteers: Why One Publisher Is Betting on Short Books with Big Ideas

December 7, 2021December 7, 2021 - by Mark Abley

Biblioasis’s new series tries to incite debate and fill a hole in the publishing landscape

An image of nine book covers on a pink background with wavy lines on it. Going clockwise, the books are: Driven: The Secret Lives of Taxi Drivers by Marcello Di Cintio, Fathers at Hockey by Richard Sanger, The Singing Forest by Judith McCormack, All’s Well by Mona Awad, The Most Precious Substance on Earth by Shashi Bhat, Why I Was Late by Charlie Petch, Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson, Pure Flame by Michelle Orange, and Second Place by Rachel Cusk.

Arts & Culture / Books

Canadian Authors Pick Their Favourite Books of 2021

December 2, 2021December 2, 2021 - by The Walrus Staff

From legal dramas to hockey poems, some of our leading contemporary writers discuss their top reads

A black and white photo of a man looking down at an open book surrounded by illustrated mouse cursors pointing away on a bright yellow background.

Arts & Culture

What We Lose When Literary Criticism Ends

May 21, 2021May 21, 2021 - by Steven Beattie

With mainstream media uninterested in books coverage that doesn’t get clicks, writers and readers are being left out in the cold

A portrait of Shakespeare with eyes redacted

Arts & Culture

The Case Against Shakespeare

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 - by Allan Stratton

The Bard has had 400 years in the limelight. It’s time our academic obsession came to an end

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