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Underappreciated Literature

A Weekly Feature on The Leonard Lopate Show

This August, Leonard Lopate explores underappreciated and forgotten works of great literature as part of a special summer reading series. The series will focus on authors that are little-known in America, authors that mysteriously fell out of fashion, and authors who never gained wide recognition in the first place.

Underappreciated: Yuri Olesha’s Envy

The Leonard Lopate Show

September 01, 2008

When it was published in 1927, Yuri Olesha's Envy was celebrated by the Soviet establishment as a condemnation of the bourgeois psyche. But two years later Olesha came under suspicion when Communist officials realized that the novel was a satire. Marian Schwartz, who translated Envy for the New York Review of Books imprint, tells us why Olesha's forgotten masterpiece deserves a second look.

Weigh in: Tell us your ideas for underappreciated works of literature we should talk about on this show in the future.

Underappreciated: Howard Sturgis’s Belchamber

The Leonard Lopate Show

August 25, 2008

Howard Sturgis was good friends with Edith Wharton and Henry James, but his novels were never as popular as theirs. His 1904 novel Belchamber traces the demise of a family of English aristocrats. Edmund White, who wrote the introduction to the New York Review of Books reissue of Belchamber, tells us why Sturgis deserves a place alongside his more famous friends.

Underappreciated: Gregor von Rezzori's Memoirs of an Anti-Semite

The Leonard Lopate Show

August 11, 2008

In Gregor von Rezzori's semi-autobiographical satire, Memoirs of an Anti-Semite, the narrator looks back on a lifetime of fascination with and hatred of Jews. Elie Wiesel has said that Rezzori's voice "echoes with the disturbing and wonderful magic of a true storyteller." Deborah Eisenberg, who wrote the introduction to the New York Review of Books edition of the novel, joins us to explain why this book should be on your summer reading list.

Underappreciated: Mercè Rodoreda

The Leonard Lopate Show

August 04, 2008

We continue our Underappreciated summer reading series with a look at Mercè Rodoreda, who wrote The Time of the Doves in exile after Franco's regime began to suppress her native Catalan language and culture. A powerful story of a young shopkeeper living through the Spanish civil war, it’s considered by many to be the best Catalan novel of all time. Author Sandra Cisneros tells us why it should be more widely read.

Underappreciated: Mehdi Charef

The Leonard Lopate Show

July 28, 2008

We continue our Underappreciated summer reading series with a look at Mehdi Charef, who helped create a new genre of Franco-African literature with his 1983 novel Tea in the Harem. It traces the conflicted identity and roots of a North African teenager living in Paris. Professor Alec Hargreaves of Florida State University tells us why Charef should be on your summer reading list.

Underappreciated: Sudanese Author Tayeb Salih

The Leonard Lopate Show

July 21, 2008

We kick off our annual summer Underappreciated literature series with a look at the work of Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih. In 1967, Salih wrote a cornerstone of contemporary Arabic literature, Season of Migration to the North, a complex novel about a man who returns to the Sudan after finishing his education in England. Columbia University professor Bruce Robbins explains why Salih deserves more widespread recognition in the United States.

Underappreciated: Eileen Chang

The Leonard Lopate Show

September 03, 2007

Eileen Chang - also known as Zhang Ailing - is one of China's most widely read authors. After an unhappy childhood in Shanghai, she began publishing short stories as a college student in the 1940s. Her genius was recognized almost immediately, and there were soon rumors of her being considered for a Nobel Prize. In 1955 Chang resettled in America, where she continued to write but became increasingly reclusive. When she died in her Los Angeles apartment in 1995, it took neighbors days to realize she was gone. Translator Karen Sawyer Kingsbury will explain why Chang should never be forgotten again.

Purchase Chang's Love in a Fallen City and Lust, Caution, soon to be made into a feature film directed by Ang Lee, at amazon.com.

Underappreciated: Junichiro Tanizaki

The Leonard Lopate Show

August 27, 2007

In the rigid literary society of Japan, Junichiro Tanizaki stood out by constructing long narratives whose imaginative content, amplitude, and structure can rightly be called novelistic. He eschewed shishosetsu - the Japanese genre that most closely resembles the novel but includes autobiographical details - choosing instead to call attention to the fictionality of his texts. Translator Anthony Chambers will tell us why Tanizaki is considered one of the most important Japanese writers of the 20th century.

Purchase Tanizaki's Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters at amazon.com.

Underappreciated: Roberto Arlt

The Leonard Lopate Show

August 20, 2007

Self-educated after the age of eight, Roberto Arlt worked many blue-collar jobs in his native Buenos Aires before embarking on a career as a writer. His novels had a huge influence on Jorge Luis Borges and others, but they are only now becoming available in English. Translator Michele Aynesworth will discuss the life and work of this great journalist, novelist, and playwright whose manic prose anticipated the likes of Irvine Welsh and William Burroughs.

Purchase Arlt's two best-known novels, Mad Toy and The Seven Madmen, at amazon.com.

Underappreciated: Stefan Zweig

The Leonard Lopate Show

August 13, 2007

In 1930, Stefan Zweig was considered the world's most translated author, with a circle of friends that included Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin, and Sigmund Freud. Yet when he was forced into exile from his native Austria during World War II, Zweig's work faded from view, even more so after his suicide in 1942. George Prochnik, who is working on a book about Stefan and Lotte Zweig, will tell us why the author deserves a revival.

Purchase Zweig's major works - Amok, Beware of Pity, Chess Story, and The World of Yesterday - at amazon.com.

Weigh in: Who's your favorite underappreciated author?

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