In 2025, we celebrate a landmark moment in American literature: the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby. First published on April 10, 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slender novel has grown into a cultural colossus, a staple of classrooms, adaptations, and literary debate. With its lyrical prose, jazz-age decadence, and aching portrayal of unfulfilled dreams, The Great Gatsby remains astonishingly modern—and its centennial is the perfect occasion to revisit not just this masterpiece, but the extraordinary literary year that birthed it.
1925 was a wonderful year in publishing, which saw novels destined to shape literary history. To celebrate this centennial, I wanted to pair five seminal works from that year with contemporary titles that either reflect, challenge, or expand upon their themes. These pairings offer a century-spanning conversation, revealing how literature continues to evolve while echoing the voices of the past. It is clear that a century on, the conversations these books started are far from over.
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis paired with Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
Sinclair’s Arrowsmith probes the ethical dilemmas of scientific discovery and public health through the life of an idealistic physician. Sheri’s Five Days at Memorial delivers a haunting nonfiction account of life-and-death decisions at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. Where Sinclair explored medical morality in fiction, Sheri roots us in the chaos and complexity of real lives—and real failures. Together, they form a chilling duet on medicine, power, and responsibility.
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham paired with The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
The Painted Veil tells the story of Kitty Fane, a young Englishwoman who must reckon with betrayal, love, and purpose amid a cholera outbreak in colonial Hong Kong. Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors also reflects on British colonialism in Southeast Asia, intertwining fiction with historical figures, including W. Somerset Maugham himself. Tan’s elegant, layered narrative reframes colonial history from within while deepening and complicating the moral landscape mapped in The Painted Veil.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf paired with Assembly by Natasha Brown
Mrs. Dalloway famously captures a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a society woman wrestling with time, memory, and inner life in post-WWI England. Nearly a century later, Natasha Brown’s Assembly mirrors this structure and introspection. Her unnamed narrator, a Black British woman navigating racism, classism, and existential disillusionment, offers a piercing update to Virginia’s stream of consciousness. Both novels are quiet yet radical portraits of women carving space in a society built to erase them.
The Trial by Franz Kafka paired with The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe, translated by E. Dale Saunders
Franz’s posthumously published, The Trial, is the ultimate bureaucratic nightmare, a tale of helplessness in the face of absurd authority. Kōbō ’s The Woman in the Dunes picks up this existential thread, trapping a man in a sand pit—and a strange village custom—with no way out. Both books are eerie, claustrophobic meditations on control, futility, and human resilience. The Trial’s influence is unmistakable, but Kōbō’s novel speaks from a different cultural context, expanding the surreal genre into new terrains.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald paired with The Chosen and The Beautiful by Nghi Vo
The Great Gatsby is the quintessential tale of longing, reinvention, and the hollowness of the American Dream. Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful offers a lush, queer, and magical retelling through the eyes of Jordan Baker, reimagined as a queer Vietnamese adoptee navigating race, gender, and otherness among Gatsby’s glittering crowd. It doesn’t just rework the original—it interrogates it, giving voice to those silenced by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s version of the dream.
Bonus Pairing: Releasing later this year, K. M. Fajardo’s novel, Local Heavens, promises to be a poetic continuation of this conversation. Set against the backdrop of diaspora and desire, the novel is set to explore identity and reinvention in a new America, resonating with Gatsby’s questions—but with fresh urgency and nuance. This is a book that is definitely on my list to pick up when it comes out.
Happy Reading!
Featured in the May 3, 2025 issue of The Independent
