The Novel and the New EthicsFor a generation of contemporary Anglo American novelists, the question "Why write?" has been answered with a renewed will to believe in the ethical value of literature. Dissatisfied with postmodernist parody and pastiche, a broad array of novelist criticsincluding J. M. Coetzee, Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith, Gish Jen, Ian McEwan, and Jonathan Franzenchampion the novel as the literary genre most qualified to illuminate individual ethical action and