Bruno Corty’s Loving Dictionary of American Literature: His America

America is a wild continent where the unexpected reigns with violence. Recent news illustrates this every day, and this well beyond next November 4.

To try to understand this complex universe, there is nothing better, in the end, with the contribution of Hollywood, than literature. Words. The men and women behind the words.

All the credit of Bruno Corty goes to this: by inventing and proposing his prodigious A Dictionary of American Literaturethe editor-in-chief of Literary Figaro introduces to both initiates and neophytes the diversity, the richness, the multiplicity of this country. Because American novels, according to him, are the only ones capable of enlightening us on this mystery: where does this violence come from?

Also readOnce Upon a Time in America: A Journey to the Heart of the American Soul

What makes the three main components of the American novel – skillfully listed by Corty – incest, suicide, alcohol? We discover it, thanks to his powerful erudition, his deep experience and his curiosity…