Finding the Prophetic in Failure A Postsecular Reading of E. L. Doctorow's City of God

In recent decades, a body of literary writing has emerged in which religious questions are foregrounded. This body of writing and the criticism connected with it is increasingly referred to as postsecular. In E. L. Doctorow's City of God, the characters and the text perform the struggle of reading prophetically, as it is defined in the writings of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. In his time, Buber urged not a return to existing models of the religious, but a turn toward prophetic reading, which is founded in relation. Literary writing of this postsecular moment, including City of God, is likewise engaged in a reconceptualization of the religious. Doctorow's novel conveys the idea that engaging the religious involves failure, but that it is through failure that we are pushed to a new modality of reading.