Every generation has a small group of young fiction writers who make it: They top bestseller lists, win prizes, and become household names. And for decades — well, nearly every decade — they have all been straight white men.

Philip Roth. Norman Mailer. John Updike. Jonathan Franzen. Jonathan Safran Foer. You get the picture.

But in the last decade or so, that’s changed: The up-and-coming writers capturing buzz and dominating critics’ lists have largely been women. Think Sally Rooney or Emma Cline or Ottessa Moshfegh. And when men do break through, they usually aren’t young, straight, or white.

It’s worth pointing out that, while women now publish more books than men, men are still publishing more books now than they ever have before.

But the (relative) decline of the men in letters has led to searching discussions, first murmured, but now increasingly debated in places like the New York Times and the Guardian: Why does the decline of the young, white, male writer matter? And what do we lose — if anything — with this shift?

“We’ve seen a lot of great work being done to account for perspectives that were left out of literature for a long time,” Ross Barkan, a journalist and novelist, told Today, Explained co-host Noel King. “But I also think it’s important to know, for better and for worse, what the men of the 2020s are up to.”

Barkan and King talked about how he feels young men have been shut out of literary fiction, what he thinks is lost, and his experience trying to get fiction published. His third novel, Glass Century, was released earlier this month.

Below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. Make sure to listen to hear the whole thing wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and

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