Nathanael West is a bright representative of the American "lost generation" (alongside such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom Nathanael West was very close). Like many literary geniuses of the twentieth century, Nathanael West gained wide recognition only after his death, when a complete collection of his works was published in 1957, and critics proclaimed him one of the greatest American writers.
In the novel "Day of the Locust", included by "Time" magazine in the list of the hundred best English-language novels, the story of love between a young artist working in Hollywood and a girl dreaming of a career as an actress is told. According to Dashiell Hammett, the novel depicts "the real Hollywood that needed to be written about".
The main character of the story "The Dream of Sadness" runs a small column in the pages of a New York newspaper; in answering letters from readers disillusioned in love, he inadvertently finds himself drawn into their mundane, sad lives...
