Dust and Light

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025

The National Book Award–winning writer’s intimate exploration of how fact is transformed into fiction.

Hailed as a "genius-enchantress" (Karen Russell) and winner of the MacArthur Fellowship, the celebrated novelist Andrea Barrett has for decades reached backward to find inspiration from the past and written acclaimed and prizewinning works of historical fiction. In Dust and Light, the first work of nonfiction of her extraordinary career, Barrett draws from that deep well of experience to explore the mysteries, methods, and delights of the form.

Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible. Barrett writes of lessons gleaned from the classic work of some of…