This spring will be a telling one for American literature, with straightforward biographies of two American giants, and, what is more interesting, novels from several authors who may have reached turning points in their careers. Novelists like Michael Chabon and Rick Moody, who only yesterday seemed to be tomorrow’s titans, now have to justify their reputations, and reigning champ Don DeLillo has set himself a profound test in writing about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, Americaninfluenced work from Japanese Haruki Murakami and Chilean Roberto Bolaño raises the question of where the center of American literature now rests.

Haruki Murakami, “After Dark,” Knopf, May

Mr. Murakami’s last American release was a punt, a collection of mostly early stories, and his last major novel, “Kafka on the Shore,” received mixed reviews, even from long-time fans. Will “After Dark,” an episodic novella, mark a return to the greatness of Mr. Murakami’s 1990s output? In a recent interview, Mr. Murakami compared himself to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Japan’s lost decade, he said, was between 1995 and 2005, when he did his best work. The new book will profile the lost souls of Tokyo’s night life, the locus of much American interest. But as usual, Mr. Murakami turns our interest back on us, making a jazz trombonist who hangs out at a Denny’s restaurant the nexus of this work.

Don DeLillo, “Falling Man,” Scribner, May

Don DeLillo’s September 11th novel will be his third slim volume since “Underworld,” his massive masterpiece of 1997. But “Falling Man,” about a man who stumbles out of a burning tower, to take refuge with his ex-wife, might as well be a major novel. It will test the prestige of an author who has made postmodern American history his subject. Paranoia has animated much of Mr. DeLillo’s work, and now that the history has caught up with him — his paranoia, in a way, has been vindicated — expectations are high. This looks to be Mr. DeLillo’s most direct and, judging from the plot, personal confrontation with history so far, and early reports of the manuscript are positive.

Ian McEwan, “On Chesil Beach,” Knopf, April

For a change, this is a novel by Ian McEwan not meant to win prizes. At 176 pages, “On Chesil Beach” tells the story of an awkward honeymoon, in 1963, between two inexperienced intellectuals. This was four years before Philip Larkin wrote about the assumption, in “High Windows,” that “When I see a couple of kids / And guess … she’s / Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, / I know this is paradise.” Unlike Larkin, Mr. McEwan will not stop at a four-letter word. The middle part of “On Chesil Beach” details the ins and outs of the couple’s difficult consummation, and since this is Ian McEwan some of the details are sure to be disturbing.

Michael Chabon, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” HarperCollins, May

When “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” triumphed in 2000, Mr. Chabon seemed to herald a revelation of surging indie sensibility. Since then, comics and graphic novels have become a staple of literary interest, and with the Chabon-edited series of “Thrilling Tales” from McSweeney’s, Stephen King and Harlan Ellison have become cool kids. Tragic but somehow cartoony Jewish protagonists, like his Kavalier, crop up frequently, and are frequently regretted. Mr. Chabon’s first major novel since “Kavalier & Clay” will ask readers to decide whether that book was more than a potpourri of trends that have now exhausted themselves. Some critics may conclude that “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” a classic American debut novel, is Mr. Chabon’s finest work to date.

Arnold Rampersand, “Ralph Ellison: A Biography,” Knopf, April

This is the long-awaited authorized biography of Ralph Ellison, and it has the enthusiastic backing of the African-American studies establishment, from Toni Morrison to Henry Louis Gates Jr. Public appreciation of Ellison was thrown off balance by the posthumous publication of “Juneteenth,” an unfinished novel, in 2000. There is a great demand for some contextual fabric that could properly couch and cushion “Invisible Man,” and this biography promises to do that, but incompletely. Expect a deliberate comprehensiveness, lots of quoting from the correspondence, but a lack of synthesis. Reviews may go further, addressing Ellison’s troubling lack of output and his distant relationship to the civil rights movement, but they may also be distracted by the news that Ellison was a sometimes grouchy, sometimes opportunistic character.

Hermione Lee, “Edith Wharton,” Knopf, April

A literary biography in the first degree, Ms. Lee’s “Edith Wharton” is expected to supplant that of the excellent old-guard Americanist, R.W.B. Lewis. Ms. Lee made her reputation with landmark biographies of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, two complex writers very different from Wharton. Ms. Lee has a willingness to be intuitive that makes her treatment of controversies bold and yet calming, frank but assured. Added to that is her willingness to read the life into the works, writing biographical criticism that is always satisfying. Of particular interest here will be Ms. Lee’s estimate of Wharton in relation to Henry James. Interest in James has swelled recently—will we experience a Wharton boom?