Selfishly, I hope the novel and literature are around for as long as people are. It will obviously change shapes and perhaps not even be recognizable two hundred years from now, but for me, literature has given me life. I can’t think of anything that’s given me such solace and hope and beauty.

Inevitably the real self does come out. Maybe we put parts of ourselves that we actually don’t manifest in reality into fiction—it’s such an unconscious process.

Play our James Joyce-themed crossword and check your answers if you get stuck!

“I’m just a random white gal raised upper-middle class. But to think that I am disconnected only allows for the continuation of a system that benefits from my ignorance.”

A conversation with Terese Svoboda about her latest book, Hitler and My Mother in Law, and how writing through uncertainty and using humor to face the unbearable truths history leaves behind.

“Writing fiction is like controlled daydreaming, whereas writing nonfiction is more like putting together a complicated three-dimensional puzzle.”