By Maria Bregman, writer and literary critic The two decades between 1920 and 1940 represent a deep paradox in the European story. It was an…

By Maria Bregman To read R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface as a story about plagiarism is like reading The Great Gatsby as a cautionary tale about bad driving. It is a…

By Maria Bregman There is a particular strain of modern historical fiction that offers its readers a terrible comfort. It takes a monumental injustice, an…

By Maria Bregman There is a version of Latin America that exists primarily for export. It is a continent of the senses, a place of…

By Maria Bregman André Maurois wrote biographies, but he was less a historian of facts and more a sculptor of character. In the lives of…

By Maria Bregman There is a certain kind of French novel that functions as a high-end emotional spa for the international reader. In its pages,…

By Maria Bregman Every year, the Booker Prize longlist offers a map of where the English-language novel is right now and, perhaps, where it’s headed.…

By Maria Bregman There is a particular kind of British comedy, a strain of satire perfected in smoky panel shows and righteous stand-up specials, that…

By Maria Bregman Every generation is given Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons as a kind of literary consolation prize. It is presented as a masterpiece of balance, a…