F26-26 Looking Back/Looking Forward- Recent Literary Fiction
Class | Available
In these two highly acclaimed novels, The Director by Daniel Kehlmann and What We Can know by Ian McEwan, our present moment in all its complexities and challenges is filtered through other historical periods and places. The Director fictionalizes the life of German filmmaker G. W. Pabst and was shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize. McEwan’s “genre-bending” novel, and an Obama favorite of ’25, takes us far into the future to remind us of our present-day responsibilities to each other and the planet. Both are great reads!
Hedda Kopf
Hedda Kopf taught literature and gender studies at Quinnipiac University for more than three decades. She continues to develop and lead book discussions at ILR as well as at several public libraries and other institutions in Connecticut. Hedda volunteers as a reading mentor in a New Haven public school and is the author of Understanding Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources and Historical Documents.