The Potential of Literary Novels

Some have said that literary novels don’t sell as they once did, and that is certainly true. But to say that they don’t sell at all, and one shouldn’t waste time attempting to write them (except for a sense of personal achievement or gratification) I would have to counter that. A recent USA Today list of 150 best sellers, despite the reality that surrounds literary works, has Khaled Hosseini’s sophomore effort, A Thousands Splendid Suns, at the top of the list.

While his debut novel, The Kite Runner, offered millions of readers a view into what life is really like in Afghanistan, A Thousand Splendid Suns—a multigenerational novel that may eventually be classed as literature—seeks to plumb even greater depths, recounting three decades of Afghan history, from the communist revolution to the Soviet invasion and the subsequent U.S.-led war against the Taliban—this through the eyes of two Afghan women.

Hosseini’s Kite Runner has even received the Hollywood treatment, as the book has since been adapted for the screen and actually wrapped production in December 2006—principal photography, as I hear it, was shot in China, and the film is now in post-production and may hit theaters by November 2007. Coincidentally, Hosseini’s Kite Runner landed at number 15 on the USA Today list, no doubt a result of the surge in interest in his latest effort.

This just goes to show that there is still great potential for the success of literary novels in the book world; readers still clamor for them, and reviewers and booksellers still salivate over them. Like all other genres, however, not every single book that can be classed as literary will be received in the same way, despite the quality of the work. The success of any book will depend of various factors: subject matter, timing, current tastes, and so many other things. It is up to the writer to write his or her story without worrying about these things, however, because no one can say for sure what will eventually become a best seller or not.