Twenty-First-Century Fiction
A Critical Introduction
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:24th Jun '13
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This critical introduction examines the formal and thematic features common among twenty-first-century writers from around the world.
This is the first full-length study of the twenty-first-century novel. It examines writers from around the world and identifies the formal and thematic features that their novels share, suggesting the outlines of a new phase in the genre's history.The widespread use of electronic communication at the dawn of the twenty-first century has created a global context for our interactions, transforming the ways we relate to the world and to one another. This critical introduction reads the fiction of the past decade as a response to our contemporary predicament – one that draws on new cultural and technological developments to challenge established notions of democracy, humanity, and national and global sovereignty. Peter Boxall traces formal and thematic similarities in the novels of contemporary writers including Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, W. G. Sebald and Philip Roth, as well as David Mitchell, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, Ali Smith, Amy Waldman and Roberto Bolaño. In doing so, Boxall maps new territory for scholars, students and interested readers of today's literature by exploring how these authors narrate shared cultural life in the new century.
'… a compelling reading of 21st-century novels … this is a refreshingly current and theoretically nuanced study. Boxall makes a persuasive and always readable case for contemporary fiction in relation to its social, cultural, and political contexts … Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' J. Young, Choice
'… a timely and highly welcome contribution to this slowly emerging field of twenty-first-century studies.' Anglistik: International Journal of English Studies
'In Twenty-First-Century Fiction … Boxall traverses a vast terrain, offering compelling close readings of more than a dozen novelists and connecting them with dozens more from around the world. His prose is lush and lyrical, his readings subtle and intellectually demanding. Sentence by sentence, both books are pleasure-reads for anyone who cares deeply about literary criticism.' Andrew Lanham, Notes and Queries
ISBN: 9780521187299
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 18mm
Weight: 390g
278 pages