Is the novel dead? A spirited debate.

Every decade someone declares the novel dead. I'm starting to think the real tradition in literature is arguing about whether literature has a future.

The novel isn't dead. It just lost its monopoly on long-form storytelling. Podcasts, prestige TV, and longform journalism all do things novels used to do exclusively.

Poetry was declared dead long before the novel and it's still here. Art forms don't die. They just stop being the dominant cultural mode. That's not death, it's democracy.

From a nonfiction perspective, I'd argue the novel has been replaced by the memoir as the dominant literary form for exploring interior life. My readers want real stories, not invented ones.

The novel is thriving outside the West. The most exciting fiction being written right now is coming from Nigeria, India, and the Caribbean. The 'death of the novel' is really the death of a particular Western literary monoculture.

Amara's point is the important one. When we say 'the novel is dead' we usually mean 'the kind of novel I was taught to write in my MFA is no longer guaranteed a six-figure advance.' That's not the same thing.