Thinking Literature

Inspired by Mary Shelley’s conviction that reading is a socially significant communal activity, this book presents four essays on modern interactions with literary classics. Ancient tragedy, Shakespeare, and Frankenstein are read anew in the context of challenges and dangers we are facing nowadays. The titular phrase, thinking literature, is meant to indicate reading literature of the previous epochs in a way that allows one to contemplate human condition against the background of the past and in connection with the present.

The essays on Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed, and modern reactions to suicide in Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, testify to the lasting relevance of ancient Greek tragedy, Shakespeare’s plays and Mary Shalley’s cautionary tale. Thinking literature by revisiting canonical texts and sharing with others the experience this brings, helps us to define, understand and confront the social and political challenges of today’s increasingly complex world.