Jennifer Wilson

@JenLouiseWilson

Did distractions, disruptions, and gossip shape Tolstoy’s novel as much as long-simmering ideas about morality and desire?

The movement has resisted an anthem. Instead, it has redefined protest music.

When Ilze Hugo started writing about an outbreak, she thought she was imagining a far-fetched dystopia.

Hulu’s new show wants to portray an ultracompetent female ruler. But it fails to capture the real genius of Catherine the Great.

Recollections of My Nonexistence is big on relatable feminist insights but skips the difficult questions.

Her semi-autobiographical comedy, Twenties, is both about making it in Hollywood and about what makes good black art.

How do you let others influence you while retaining your own ideas? Four literary critics tried to find out.

A new essay collection shows his opposition to Cold War politics in literature.

The child witnesses in her new book focus on the bewildering experience of war.

The Russian writer Maxim Osipov was best known as a medical doctor, until he began to publish arresting, empathetic stories of sickness and treatment.

In their encounters with Western art, Soviet audiences found ways to reimagine themselves.

“1983” imagines a terrifying alternate reality, but ignores the real dangers that Poland faces today.

Matthew Weiner’s new show had the potential to reckon with the uses and abuses of the past.

A Russian-American graduate student struggles for authenticity in Keith Gessen’s novel “A Terrible Country.”