Post-Katrina Literature

Of course there are now millions upon millions of words that have been written in newspapers and magazines about the disaster that occurred in New Orleans. Reportage, non-fiction, essays. But what of the novel? What of fiction? The Guardian takes a look at who is writing about that awesome tragedy.

These sorts of discussions happened after 9/11 as well.

A brief side note, I recommend the following in regards to 9/11 literature...

The Zero by Jess Walter.
A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Falling Man by Don DeLillo.

When is it "okay" to fictionalize horrific events? What is the time frame when someone "heals" enough to be able to read this type of fiction? Should it even be written at all? And, if so, what purpose does it serve? Author Arundhati Roy once stated, "I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was." Flannery O'Connor, "The artist penetrates the concrete world in order to find at its depths the image of its source, the image of ultimate reality.” Perhaps fiction is "truer" than non-fiction. Perhaps a novel tells more about an event than an article in Time Magazine. Perhaps.