Literary Figures: Novelists

Sigrid Nunez's National Book Award-winning novel is narrated by a woman grieving the suicide of her longtime friend and former writing professor, whom she slept with once.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez's novel, The Shape Of The Ruins, centers on the 1948 assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the years of violence that followed and the conspiracy theories surrounding his death.

Bad things happen in Castle Rock, a new Hulu series based on King's fictional town. King spoke to Fresh Air in 1992, 2000 and 2013 about his career writing horror and his fear of losing his mind.

As someone who lives with obsessive-compulsive disorder, novelist John Green sometimes feels like his mind is spiraling uncontrollably.

Growing up as a first-generation Chinese-American in Northern California, novelist Amy Tan found herself pulled by two different notions of fate: Her mother was guided by beliefs in curses and luck, while her father, a Baptist minister, was guided by Christian faith.

It's a time-honored tradition for novelists to draw material from their own lives, and author Tom Perrotta is no exception. His 2004 book, Little Children, sprang from his experience as the parent of young kids. Three years later, he published The Abstinence Teacher, which was inspired, in part, by the junior-high and high-school sports his children played at the time.

Illustrator Marjane Satrapi is the author of the memoir, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. The book is in the form of an illustrated comic. Satrapi was born in 1969 in Iran, and grew up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. One reviewer writes, "A triumph... Like Maus, Persepolis is one of those comic books capable of seducing even those most allergic to the genre."

My Favorite Thing is Monsters is Emil Ferris' debut graphic novel, about a ten year old girl who sees herself as a werewolf. Ferris always loved monsters, and also wanted to be one as a child. Her love of monsters is what helped her get thru some of the darkest periods of her life.

Author Mohsin Hamid's new novel, Exit West, is about knowing when it's time to flee your country, and what happens when you migrate to a nation that's hostile to immigrants. It's a topic the author himself is personally familiar with.

The protagonist of Sebastian Barry's new novel is conscripted right off the boat as the price of American citizenship. Eventually he finds love and companionship with one of his fellow soldiers.