Is Ayn Rand a serious artist concretizing a timeless message or a writer of ideological sermons disguised as novels? Over at Objectivism: Who Needs It, my colleague Onkar Ghate explains why categorizing her as a “didactic fiction” writer is completely wrong:

This is a question that Ayn Rand was asked in different ways throughout her life, often as a kind of veiled criticism, the implication being that Rand is not really an artist or a dramatist, but a propagandist. . . . It’s a question that Rand eventually grew tired of, not because she couldn’t answer it, but because it usually meant that those asking the question were operating with faulty concepts and categories, clouding their ability to think. Nevertheless, it is an interesting question and it is illuminating to see why Rand found the question itself suspect.

Read the whole essay here.

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