Dear readers! 

The Department of the Universal Reading Room has prepared a video review «The Artist of Social Life» on the 150th anniversary of the American writer Theodore Dreiser.         

Theodore Dreiser is a naturalist artist. He builds his works on the colossal material of observation and experience. His art is the art of precise and meticulous representation, the art of facts and things.  Based on intense journalistic work, he took great pleasure in describing Chicago's dynamism, extreme poverty and extreme wealth. Theodore was a pioneer of the naturalist trend in the United States, fascinated by the novels of Zola and Balzac. He often drew attention to the problem of social inequality.