Reconsidering the Postmodern: European Literature Beyond Relativism - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9089643699 ISBN 13: 9789089643698

Publisher: Routledge, 2014

Synopsis

From Grunberg to Houellebecq, from Hemon to Marķas: contemporary literature is deeply influenced by postmodernism. This timely study takes its reader on a tour of the European novel and the critical discussion around it. Now that postmodernism has been declared moribund, it is time to critically evaluate its literary legacy. Have we gone beyond it in literature and why would we want to go beyond? Twelve specialists in the national literatures sketch the outlines of the debate. Turning to the novels, they find them to be engaged, but not uncritically so. Personal, and still ironic; historical, but not nostalgic; Reconsidering the Postmodern reveals how the European novel has renewed itself.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Vaessens is professor of modern Dutch literature at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Huizinga Institute. Yra van Dijk is assistant professor of Dutch literature of the University of Amsterdam.

From the Back Cover

From Michel Houellebecq to Zadie Smith, from Javier Marķas to Arnon Grunberg: this timely study takes its reader on a tour of European literature and the critical discussion around it. Despite recent declarations of postmodernism's demise, contemporary literature turns out to be entangled in a discussion with postmodernism. It is time to critically evaluate this legacy. Twelve specialists in the national literatures sketch the outlines of the debate. Turning to literature itself, they find it to be searching for new values after the relativizing force of postmodernism.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9089643699
• ISBN 13: 9789089643698
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324
• Editor: Vaessens Thomas, Dijk Yra Van