Welcome to Lit Century: 100 Years, 100 Books. Combining literary analysis with an in-depth look at historical context, host Catherine Nichols chooses one book for each year of the 20th century, and—along with special guests—takes a deep dive into a hundred years of literature.

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In this episode, host Catherine Nichols and writer Sally Foreman discuss Zabel Yessayan’s enigmatic 1922 novel My Soul in Exile. Yesayan wrote the book after reporting on the genocide of her own Armenian people, shortly before before becoming a Communist. The book is counterintuitively joyful, as Yesayan describes a life in the arts both as a form of exile and a form of homecoming.

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Sally Foreman is an English writer and researcher living in Jerusalem.

Catherine Nichols is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in many places, including Jezebel, Aeon, and Electric Literature. She lives in Brooklyn.

Lit Century

Lit Century

Hosts Sandra Newman and Catherine Nichols choose one book for each year of the twentieth century (Nella Larsen's Passing, 1936, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, 1966; Mohandas Gandhi's Indian Home Rule, 1909) and talk about it in its historical and literary context. Join the hosts and their special guests to find out what the 20th century was all about.