10,807 articles
Weep Not, Child
Weep Not, Child is the first novel by the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, published in 1964 and the first East African novel published in English.
Weird fiction
Weird fiction is a literary mode blending horror, fantasy, and science fiction in which reality is disrupted by phenomena resisting genre explanation, distinct from cosmic horror, its scale-focused strain, and from the New Weird, its modern descendant.
Welcome to the N.H.K.
Welcome to the N.H.K. (N・H・Kにようこそ！, NHK ni Yōkoso!) is Tatsuhiko Takimoto's 2002 Kadokawa novel about hikikomori Tatsuhiro Satō and the fictional Japan Hikikomori Association conspiracy, adapted into Kendi Oiwa's manga and Gonzo's 2006 anime.
Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant!
Welcome to the Outcast's Restaurant! (追放者食堂へようこそ！, Tsuihōsha Shokudō e Yōkoso!) is a Japanese gourmet fantasy light novel by Yūki Kimikawa and Gaou, serialized on Shōsetsuka ni Narō from 2018, published by Overlap in three volumes, adapted to manga by Tsumumi and a 2025 OLM anime about chef Dennis and Atelier.
Wendat oral literature
Wendat oral literature is the stories, myths, songs, and historical narratives passed down by speech among the Wendat (Huron) people of Wendake, between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe.
Wenderoman
A Wenderoman ("turn novel") is a German-language novel centered on the Wende, the Peaceful Revolution in East Germany, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and reunification.
Wendy Darling
Wendy Darling, Wendy Moira Angela Darling, is J. M. Barrie's heroine from the 1904 play Peter Pan and the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy: the eldest Darling child who mothers and tells stories to the Lost Boys in Neverland and grows up in the novel's final chapter.
Wenyan xiaoshuo
Wenyan xiaoshuo (文言小说, classical-language fiction) is fiction written in classical Chinese, running from Six Dynasties anomaly tales through Tang chuanqi to Pu Songling's Qing masterpieces.
West Coast Avengers
The West Coast Avengers, or The Avengers West Coast, is a Marvel superhero team based in Los Angeles. It debuted in 1984 and featured original members like Hawkeye and Wonder Man.
West Indies, Ltd.
West Indies, Ltd. is a 1934 poetry collection by Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, his second book and first with political overtones, published in Havana and denouncing foreign exploitation of the Antilles.
West-Eastern Divan
West-Eastern Divan (West-östlicher Divan) is Goethe's collection of lyric poetry, written 1814 to 1819, that answers the Persian poet Hafez in German and is considered his great late work.
Western canon
The Western canon is the body of influential literary, philosophical, and artistic works used as a standard in Western culture. Debates over its contents began in the 1980s.
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set on the American frontier, typically west of the Mississippi, between the Civil War and the early 20th century.
Wethandaya Pyo
Wethandaya Pyo is a Burmese pyo, an ornate classical verse work retelling the Vessantara Jataka, the tale of Prince Vessantara whose perfect generosity is rewarded with a triumphant homecoming.
Weyward
Weyward, Emilia Hart's 2023 debut novel (St. Martin's Press), follows three women of one family line in 1619, 1942, and 2019, connected by nature-linked powers, in Cumbrian witch-trial historical fiction that won two Goodreads Choice Awards.
Whalefall (novel)
Whalefall, also titled Whale Fall, is Daniel Kraus's 2023 survival thriller novel about diver Jay Gardiner, swallowed by a sperm whale off Monterey with one hour of oxygen; adapted into Brian Duffield's 2026 20th Century Studios film.
What a piece of work is a man
"What a piece of work is a man" is a speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet in which Hamlet praises humanity, then dismisses it as "quintessence of dust".
What Feasts at Night
What Feasts at Night is T. Kingfisher's 2024 gothic horror novella, second in the Sworn Soldier series after What Moves the Dead, following Alex Easton in Gallacia against a breath-stealing moroi; a 2025 Hugo Best Novella finalist.
What Happens After Nora Leaves Home?
What Happens After Nora Leaves Home? (娜拉走后怎样) is a 1923 lecture by Lu Xun arguing that Nora, after leaving, can only go home or go to the dogs.
What If (comics)
What If? is Marvel Comics' alternate-history anthology, begun 1977-1984 from editor Roy Thomas' premise, Watcher-narrated, revived 1989-1998 as What If...? and continued via event-tied one-shots and the 2021 Disney+ animated series.
What Is to Be Done? (Что делать?) (novel)
What Is to Be Done? (Что делать?) is an 1863 novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky, written while he was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg.
What Moves the Dead
What Moves the Dead is a 2022 horror novella by T. Kingfisher, the first Sworn Soldier book, retelling Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' as fungal body horror narrated by nonbinary soldier Alex Easton; a Hugo and Locus finalist with sequel What Feasts at Night.
What Stalks the Deep
What Stalks the Deep is a 2025 horror novella by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), third in the Sworn Soldier series, following Alex Easton into a haunted West Virginia coal mine; a 2026 Hugo Best Novella finalist.
What We Can Know
What We Can Know is Ian McEwan's 19th novel (2025, Penguin Random House/Penguin), moving between a 2014 poets' dinner and a flooded 2119 Britain where a scholar seeks the lost poem 'A Corona for Vivien', inspired by John Fuller's 'A Corona for Prue'.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is Raymond Carver's 1981 Knopf collection of 17 minimalist stories, edited and halved by Gordon Lish from the manuscript Beginners; its title story follows two couples debating love in an Albuquerque kitchen.
What Work Is
What Work Is is a 1991 collection of 25 poems by American poet Philip Levine on manual labor and working-class Detroit, which won the 1991 National Book Award for Poetry.
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library (お探し物は図書室まで)
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library (お探し物は図書室まで) is Michiko Aoyama's 2020 novel of five linked Tokyo stories around librarian Sayuri Komachi; second in the 2021 Booksellers Award, translated by Alison Watts in 2023.
What's With Baum?
What's With Baum? is Woody Allen's debut novel, published September 2025 by Post Hill Press (US) and Swift Press (UK). It follows neurotic Jewish writer Asher Baum facing a failing third marriage, a dropped publisher, and a #MeToo-style scandal, and received mixed reviews.
When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air (2016) is neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi's posthumous memoir of stage IV lung cancer diagnosed at 36; #1 bestseller, Pulitzer finalist, completed by Lucy Kalanithi.
When Buckwheat Flowers Bloom
"When the Buckwheat Blooms" (메밀꽃 필 무렵) is a 1936 short story by Korean writer Lee Hyo-seok, considered one of the finest modern Korean short stories.