Reading:
Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story, 99-150
Study Questions:
1. One of the ways that literary critics interpret literature is to read it in the context in which it was written. The novel was first published in 2010, but was written over a period years before that. What contexts seem to be important in shaping the novel? Since dystopia is a genre that at its best extends the failures of the present into the future as a form of critique, what is Shytengart critiquing?
2. Another way literary critics interpret literature is to see its contemporary relevance. In a recent essay in The New Yorker, Shtenygart writes, "I grew up in a dystopia—will I have to die in one, too?" How might Super Sad True Love Story be useful to understand the present moment.
