During a time when faith in objective truth would seem to be at an all-time low globally, how is it that the very best literary fiction—the historical novel, in particular—continues to offer such a transporting and effective take on both history and the present? LAUREN GROFF would know. Her luminous new novel Matrix, a feminist story set in the 12th century, is a defiant and timely exploration of female ambition, power, and creativity in a corrupted world. A world that provides Groff, like Hilary Mantel before her, a literary springboard into a past with features that offer a mirror to our own time. Join one of our most celebrated novelists as she paints a window into our world that is at once then and now.

Photo credit: Eli Sinkus