Chicago literature is writing, primarily by writers born or living in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, that reflects the culture of the city.

Themes and movements

James Atlas, in his biography of Chicago writer Saul Bellow, suggests that "the city's reputation for nurturing literary and intellectual talent can be traced to the same geographical centrality that made it a great industrial power." When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it was a frontier outpost with about 4,000 people. The population rose rapidly to approximately 100,000 in 1860. By 1890, the city had over 1 million people. Chicago's dynamic growth, as well as the manufacturing, economics, and politics that fueled this growth, can be seen in the works of writers like

Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg ...

Theodore Dreiser Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...

Sherwood Anderson Sherwood Anderson (September 13, 1876 – March 8, 1941) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for subjective and self-revealing works. Self-educated, he rose to become a successful copywriter and business owner in Cleveland and ...

Hamlin Garland Hannibal Hamlin Garland (September 14, 1860 – March 4, 1940) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer, Georgist, and psychical researcher. He is best known for his fiction involving hard-working Midwestern farmers. Biogr ...

Frank Norris Benjamin Franklin Norris Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American journalist and novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include '' McTeague: A Story of San ...

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...

Willa Cather Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including '' O Pioneers!'', '' The Song of the Lark'', and '' My Ántonia''. In 19 ...

, and

Edna Ferber Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' So Big'' (1924), ''Show Boat'' (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), '' Cim ...

. Due to these rapid changes, Chicago writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries faced the challenge of how to depict this potentially disorienting new urban reality. Narrative fiction of that time, much of it in the style of "high-flown romance" and "genteel realism", needed a new approach to describe Chicago's social, political, and economic conditions. Chicagoans worked hard to create a literary tradition that would stand the test of time, and create a "city of feeling" out of concrete, steel, vast lake, and open prairie. Among the new techniques and styles embraced by Chicago writers were " naturalism," "

imagism Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is someti ...

," and "

free verse Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French '' vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. Defini ...

." Themes often centered on an exciting but dirty urbanism, as well as the quaint but dark and sometimes stultifying small town. Chicago's early twentieth-century writers and publishers were seen as producing innovative work that broke with the literary traditions of Europe and the Eastern United States. In 1920, the critic H.L. Mencken wrote in a London magazine, the ''

Nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective Identity (social science), identity of a group of people unde ...

,'' that Chicago was the "Literary Capital of the United States." Expressing the attitude that Chicago writers were creating a distinctive, new, and far from genteel literary idiom, he wrote, "Find a writer who is indubitably an American in every pulse-beat, snort, and adenoid, an American who has something new and peculiarly American to say and who says it in an unmistakable American way, and nine times out of ten you will find that he has some sort of connection with the gargantuan and inordinate abattoir by Lake Michigan." Poetry cover1

While Chicago produced much realist and naturalist fiction, its literary institutions also played a crucial role in promoting international

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

. The avant-garde ''

Little Review ''The Little Review'', an American literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson in Chicago's historic Fine Arts Building, published literary and art work from 1914 to May 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound, Anderson created a maga ...

'' (founded 1914 by Margaret Anderson) began in Chicago, though it later moved elsewhere. The ''Little Review'' provided an important platform for experimental literature, famously it was the first to publish

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

's novel '' Ulysses,'' in serial form until the magazine was forced to discontinue the novel due to obscenity charges. Similarly, the publication that became ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

'' magazine (founded 1912 by

Harriet Monroe Harriet Monroe (December 23, 1860 – September 26, 1936) was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet, and patron of the arts. She was the founding publisher and long-time editor of '' Poetry'' magazine, first published in 1912. As a ...

) was instrumental in launching the

Imagist Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is someti ...

and

Objectivist Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-American writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. She described it as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement ...

poetic movements.

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biog ...

's first professionally published poem, "

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", commonly known as "Prufrock", is the first professionally published poem by American-born British poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). Eliot began writing "Prufrock" in February 1910, and it was first publishe ...

," appeared in ''Poetry''. Contributors have included

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedi ...

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hug ...

and

, among others. The magazine also discovered such poets as

Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poet ...

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for '' Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyr ...

, and

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

.Goodyear, Dana
"The Moneyed Muse: What can two hundred million dollars do for poetry?"
article, ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', February 19 and February 26 double issue, 2007 ''Poetry'' and the ''Little Review'' were "daring" in their editorial championship of the modernist movement. Later editors also made substantial contributions in poetry, as did Chicago's university and performance venues. Chicago's universities also have a strong reputation for developing literary talent. In the second half of the 20th century, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the ...

served as a hub for many emerging

postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

writers such as

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only wr ...

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, an ...

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophical ...

, and

Robert Coover Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. Background C ...

. Bellow received his Bachelor's from nearby

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Chart ...

, which has also produced acclaimed authors such as George R.R. Martin,

Tina Rosenberg Tina Rosenberg (born April 14, 1960) is an American journalist and the author of three books. For one of them, '' The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism'' (1995), she won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the Nati ...

and Kate Walbert. Today, Chicago is home to the world's largest youth poetry festival, Louder Than a Bomb. Since its founding in 2001, Louder Than a Bomb has grown into a multi-week celebration that includes competitions, workshops, and other poetry-related events. By 2018, the festival was drawing over 100 teams for a total of more than 1000 young poets competing in spoken word tournaments. The festival is credited with influencing contemporary Chicago poets like Nate Marshall and José Olivarez. According to Bill Savage in ''The Encyclopedia of Chicago'', today's Chicago writers are still interested in the same social themes and urban landscapes that compelled earlier Chicago writers: "the fundamental dilemmas presented by city life in general and by the specifics of Chicago's urban spaces, history, and relentless change."

Periodization

''The Encyclopedia of Chicago'' identifies three periods of works from Chicago which had a major influence on

American Literature American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also i ...

: *A period around the turn of the 20th century, which featured "Midland realism" of authors such as

Henry Blake Fuller Henry Blake Fuller (January 9, 1857 – July 28, 1929) was an American novelist and short story writer. He was born and worked in Chicago, Illinois. He is perhaps the earliest novelist from Chicago to gain a national reputation. His exploratio ...

and

Eugene Field Eugene Field Sr. (September 2, 1850 – November 4, 1895) was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. He was known as the "poet of childhood". Early life and education Field was born in St. Louis, Missour ...

; *A period in the 1910s and 1920s in which literary works were published by newspapers and new literary magazines based in Chicago. Sometimes called the "Chicago Renaissance" which includes the later works of Dreiser and the work of authors such as

, Floyd Dell,

, and Margaret Anderson; *A period in the 1940s featuring what it calls "neighborhood novels." Authors in this period include James T. Farrell, Richard Wright,

and

. Literature scholar

Robert Bone Robert Adamson Bone (1924 – November 25, 2007). was a scholar of African-American literature and a professor of English at Columbia University. Biography Bone was a conscientious objector during World War II. He received a B.A. in English from ...

argues for the existence of an overlapping fourth period: *A second "Chicago Renaissance," this time lasting approximately 1935 to 1950 and referring to a wave of creativity from Chicago's African-American writers. Bone suggests that this Chicago Renaissance was comparable in influence and importance to the earlier

Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the ...

. Bone's list of Chicago Renaissance writers includes fiction writers like Richard Wright,

William Attaway William Alexander Attaway (November 19, 1911 – June 17, 1986) was an African-American novelist, short story writer, essayist, songwriter, playwright, and screenwriter. Biography Early life Attaway was born on November 19, 1911, in Greenvil ...

, and Willard Motley along with poets like Frank Marshall Davis and

Margaret Walker Margaret Walker (Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander by marriage; July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an American poet and writer. She was part of the African-American literary movement in Chicago, known as the Chicago Black Renaissance. ...

. It is worth noting that the term " Chicago Black Renaissance" is often used to denote creativity in all the arts, not just in literature, during the 1930s-50s.

Works about Chicago or set in Chicago

Much notable Chicago writing focuses on the city itself, with social criticism keeping exultation in check. Here is a selection of Chicago's most famous works about itself:

Fiction, drama, and poetry

Nelson Algren Nelson Algren (born Nelson Ahlgren Abraham; March 28, 1909 – May 9, 1981) was an American writer. His 1949 novel ''The Man with the Golden Arm'' won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name. Algren articulated ...

's '' Chicago: City on the Make'' (1951) is a prose poem about the alleys and the El tracks, the neon and the dive bars, the beauty and cruelty of Chicago. *

David Auburn David Auburn (born 30 November 1969) is an American playwright, screenwriter and theatre director. He is best known for his 2000 play ''Proof'', which won the 2001 Tony Award for Best Play and Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He also wrote the screenp ...

's play ''

Proof Proof most often refers to: * Proof (truth), argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition * Alcohol proof, a measure of an alcoholic drink's strength Proof may also refer to: Mathematics and formal logic * Formal proof, a co ...

'' (2000 New York debut) is set on the porch of a house in Hyde Park. The play focuses on the emotional turmoil experienced by Catherine, a young woman who recently lost her father, a prominent

mathematician who suffered from an unspecified mental illness. *

's '' Adventures of Augie March'' (1953) charts the long, drifting life of a Jewish Chicagoan and his myriad eccentric acquaintances throughout the early 20th century: growing up in the then Eastern European neighborhood of Humboldt Park, cavorting with heiresses on Chicago's Gold Coast, studying at the University of Chicago, fleeing union thugs in the Loop, and taking the odd detour to hang out with Trotsky in

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Gua ...

while eagle-hunting giant iguanas on horseback. Novelist

Martin Amis Martin Louis Amis (born 25 August 1949) is a British novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels '' Money'' (1984) and ''London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir ' ...

describes the book as "An epic about the so-called ordinary," a remark that indicates the text's sprawling, episodic structure. Amis also goes so far as to claim that "''The Adventures of Augie March'' is the Great American Novel." * Gwendolyn Brooks's ''A Street in Bronzeville'' (1945) is the collection of poems that launched the career of the famous Chicago poet, focusing on the aspirations, disappointments, and daily life of African-Americans living in 1940s Bronzeville. * Frank London Brown's powerful debut novel, "Trumbull Park" (1959) fictionalizes the real-life ordeals of the first black families to integrate South Side Chicago's Trumbull Park public housing project in the 1950s. First published 1959. Henry Regnery Company, Chicago. Re-published 2004, 2005 by Northeastern University Press (Northeastern Library of Black Literature). *

Sandra Cisneros Sandra Cisneros (born December 20, 1954) is an American writer. She is best known for her first novel, '' The House on Mango Street'' (1983), and her subsequent short story collection, ''Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories'' (1991). Her work e ...

's '' The House on Mango Street'' (1983) is a Mexican-American

coming-of-age novel In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood (coming of age), in which character change is import ...

, dealing with a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in a neighborhood modeled on Chicago's Humboldt Park. It commonly appears in American high school reading lists. * Theodore Dreiser's '' Sister Carrie'' (1900) tells the tale of a country girl who leaves home to seek her fortune, first in Chicago and later in New York. Its descriptions of Chicago include a portrait of Loop department stores at the end of the nineteenth century. According to the ''Dictionary of Literary Biography,'' Dreiser was an important figure in American naturalism. * Stuart Dybek's ''The Coast of Chicago'' (2004), written in a style blending the gritty with the dreamlike, is a collection of fourteen short stories about growing up in Chicago, largely in neighborhoods such as Pilsen and

Little Village Little Village was an American/British rock band, formed in 1991 by Ry Cooder (guitar, vocal), John Hiatt (guitar, piano, vocal), Nick Lowe (bass, vocal) and Jim Keltner (drums). Each of the group's members had previously worked on Hiatt's 1987 ...

populated by Eastern European and Latino immigrant communities. * Eve Ewing's poetry collection ''1919'' (2019), a follow-up to her 2017 volume ''Electric Arches,'' uses poetry to depict the

Chicago race riot of 1919 The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died (23 black and ...

and grapple with its legacy a century after the

Red Summer of 1919 Red Summer was a period in mid-1919 during which white supremacist terrorism and racial riots occurred in more than three dozen cities across the United States, and in one rural county in Arkansas. The term "Red Summer" was coined by civi ...

. * James T. Farrell's ''Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy'' (1935) focuses on the often bitter lives of Chicago's South Side Irish-Americans during the 1920s and 30s, tying their fates to larger cultural narratives like the American Dream and to historical events like

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic be ...

and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The Financial contagion, ...

. *

Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play ''A Raisin in the Sun'', highli ...

's play '' Raisin in the Sun'' (1959 Broadway debut) depicts the struggles faced by a working-class family of black Chicagoans who attempt to purchase a home in a segregated white neighborhood. The play echoes a real event: in 1938, Hansberry's father challenged the

restrictive covenant A covenant, in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a s ...

that enforced racial segregation in Chicago's

Washington Park Subdivision The Washington Park Subdivision is the name of the historic 3-city block by 4-city block subdivision in the northwest corner of the Woodlawn community area, on the South Side of Chicago in Illinois that stands in the place of the original ...

. *

Audrey Niffenegger Audrey Niffenegger (born June 13, 1963) is an American writer, artist and academic. Her debut novel, ''The Time Traveler's Wife'', published in 2003, was a bestseller. Biography Audrey Niffenegger was born in 1963 in South Haven, Michigan. Then ...

's science fiction love story ''

The Time Traveler's Wife ''The Time Traveler's Wife'' is the debut novel by American author Audrey Niffenegger, published in 2003. It is a love story about Henry, a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and about Clare, his wife, a ...

'' (2003) takes place largely in North Side Chicago settings, including the

Newberry Library The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics rela ...

. *

's '' The Pit'' (1903) is a naturalistic novel about greed and speculation at the early 20th-century

Chicago Board of Trade The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), established on April 3, 1848, is one of the world's oldest futures and options exchanges. On July 12, 2007, the CBOT merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to form CME Group. CBOT and three other excha ...

. It is the second installment in ''The Epic of Wheat,'' a never-finished trilogy in which Norris planned to depict the economic life cycle of this crucial commodity from production to consumption. *

's '' Chicago Poems'' (1916) depicts scenes from early-twentieth-century Chicago, often focusing on working-class characters and commenting on the class divide. With this early volume, Sandburg established his reputation as the poet of the common American. *

's ''

The Jungle ''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair's primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. However, most readers wer ...

'' (1906) belongs to the canons of both Chicago literature and US labor history for its muckraking depiction of the desolation experienced by Lithuanian immigrants working in the

Union Stock Yards The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was operated by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a central ...

on Chicago's Southwest Side. * Richard Wright's ''

Native Son ''Native Son'' (1940) is a novel written by the American author Richard Wright. It tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, a black youth living in utter poverty in a poor area on Chicago's South Side in the 1930s. While not apologizing ...

'' (1940), set in Depression-era Bronzeville and Hyde Park, is about a doomed, young, black man warped by the racism and poverty that define his surroundings.

Nonfiction

* Karen Abbott's ''Sin in the Second City'' (2007) provides a history of Chicago's vice district, the Levee, and some of the early twentieth-century personalities involved: gangsters, corrupt politicians, crusading reformers, and two sisters who ran the most elite brothel in town. *

Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage ...

' ''Twenty Years at Hull-House'' (1910), written by a social reformer who won the 1931 Nobel Peace prize, is an autobiography combined with firsthand investigation of poverty, immigrant communities, and political activism in turn-of-the-20th-century Chicago. * Erik Larson's ''Devil in the White City'' (2003) is a best-selling popular history about the 1893 Colombian Exposition; it's also about the serial killer who was stalking the city at the same time. Straight history of the Exposition and also the workers' paradise in Pullman is found in James Gilbert's ''Perfect Cities: Chicago's Utopias of 1893''. *

Mike Royko Michael Royko Jr. (September 19, 1932 – April 29, 1997) was an American newspaper columnist from Chicago. Over his 30-year career, he wrote over 7,500 daily columns for the '' Chicago Daily News'', the '' Chicago Sun-Times'', and the ''Chica ...

's ''Boss'' (1971), written by a ''Chicago Daily News'' columnist, is a biography of the powerful mayor

Richard J. Daley Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who served as the Mayor of Chicago from 1955 and the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Central Committee from 1953 until his death. He has been c ...

. The book provides a critical look at Daley's rise to power and at Chicago's political culture of "clout." ''American Pharaoh'' (Cohen and Taylor) is a scholarly treatment of the same subject. *

Studs Terkel Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral hi ...

's ''Working'' (1974) is a series of interviews with American workers. Although Terkel interviewed people in other cities, most of his material comes from Chicago, and the book uses interviews to paint a composite portrait of Chicago as a laboring town.Austen, Jake.
Building Stories vs. Working: Greatest Chicago Book Tournament, round one
" ''Chicago Reader'' 29 Dec 2014.

Alternate realities

Alternative versions of Chicago sometimes appear in fantasy and science fiction novels. *

Jim Butcher Jim Butcher (born October 26, 1971) is an American author., He has written the contemporary fantasy ''The Dresden Files'', ''Codex Alera'', and '' Cinder Spires'' book series. Personal life Butcher was born in Independence, Missouri, in 1971. ...

's ''

The Dresden Files ''The Dresden Files'' is a series of contemporary fantasy/ mystery novels written by American author Jim Butcher. The first novel, '' Storm Front''—which was also Butcher's writing debut—was published in 2000 by Roc Books. The books are wr ...

'' (begun 2000) is a series set in Chicago about Harry Dresden, Chicago's first (and only) Wizard PI, who protects the city from supernatural attack. * Veronica Roth's ''Divergent'' trilogy (2011–13) is a young-adult series set in a dystopian future Chicago.

Other

Other noted writers, who were from Chicago or who spent a significant amount of their careers in Chicago include,

David Mamet David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays '' Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and ''Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century ...

Ben Hecht Ben Hecht (; February 28, 1894 – April 18, 1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A successful journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most enjoyed screenplay ...

John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visi ...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Edgar Rice Burroughs (September 1, 1875 – March 19, 1950) was an American author, best known for his prolific output in the adventure, science fiction, and fantasy genres. Best-known for creating the characters Tarzan and John Carter, ...

Edgar Lee Masters Edgar Lee Masters (August 23, 1868 – March 5, 1950) was an American attorney, poet, biographer, and dramatist. He is the author of '' Spoon River Anthology'', ''The New Star Chamber and Other Essays'', ''Songs and Satires'', ''The Great ...

, and

Notes

Furthur reading

*Duffey, Bernard, ''The Chicago Renaissance in American Letters,''

Greenwood Press Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...

, Westport CT (1972) * * Moore, Michelle E., ''Chicago and the Making of American Modernism: Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald in Conflict'', Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York (2019)

External links

Chicago Literary Hall of Fame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chicago Literature Chicago in fiction Literature by topic

Themes and movements

Periodization

Works about Chicago or set in Chicago

Fiction, drama, and poetry

Nonfiction

Alternate realities

Other

See also

Notes

Furthur reading

External links