Author:
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617752134
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
“A truly funny sendup of the corrupt politics of academe, the publishing industry and politics, as well as a subtle but biting critique of racial ideology.” —Publishers Weekly This “hilarious high-concept satire” (Publishers Weekly), by the PEN/Faulkner finalist and acclaimed author of Telephone and Erasure, is a fictitious and satirical chronicle of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond’s desire to pen a history of African-Americans—his and his aides’ belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, The History follows the letters of loose cannon Congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic. Strom Thurmond appears charming and open, mad and sure of his place in American history. “Outrageously funny . . . it could become a cult classic.” —Library Journal “I think Percival Everett is a genius. I’ve been a fan since his first novel . . . He’s a brilliant writer and so damn smart I envy him.” —Terry McMillan, New York Times-bestselling author of It’s Not All Downhill from Here “God bless Percival Everett, whose dozens of idiosyncratic books demonstrate a majestic indifference to literary trends, the market or his critics.”?The Wall Street Journal
A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond
Author:
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617752134
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
“A truly funny sendup of the corrupt politics of academe, the publishing industry and politics, as well as a subtle but biting critique of racial ideology.” —Publishers Weekly This “hilarious high-concept satire” (Publishers Weekly), by the PEN/Faulkner finalist and acclaimed author of Telephone and Erasure, is a fictitious and satirical chronicle of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond’s desire to pen a history of African-Americans—his and his aides’ belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, The History follows the letters of loose cannon Congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic. Strom Thurmond appears charming and open, mad and sure of his place in American history. “Outrageously funny . . . it could become a cult classic.” —Library Journal “I think Percival Everett is a genius. I’ve been a fan since his first novel . . . He’s a brilliant writer and so damn smart I envy him.” —Terry McMillan, New York Times-bestselling author of It’s Not All Downhill from Here “God bless Percival Everett, whose dozens of idiosyncratic books demonstrate a majestic indifference to literary trends, the market or his critics.”?The Wall Street Journal
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 1617752134
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
“A truly funny sendup of the corrupt politics of academe, the publishing industry and politics, as well as a subtle but biting critique of racial ideology.” —Publishers Weekly This “hilarious high-concept satire” (Publishers Weekly), by the PEN/Faulkner finalist and acclaimed author of Telephone and Erasure, is a fictitious and satirical chronicle of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond’s desire to pen a history of African-Americans—his and his aides’ belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, The History follows the letters of loose cannon Congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic. Strom Thurmond appears charming and open, mad and sure of his place in American history. “Outrageously funny . . . it could become a cult classic.” —Library Journal “I think Percival Everett is a genius. I’ve been a fan since his first novel . . . He’s a brilliant writer and so damn smart I envy him.” —Terry McMillan, New York Times-bestselling author of It’s Not All Downhill from Here “God bless Percival Everett, whose dozens of idiosyncratic books demonstrate a majestic indifference to literary trends, the market or his critics.”?The Wall Street Journal
A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid (A Novel)
Author: Percival Everett
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 9781888451573
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Presents a fictitious chronicle of a former senator Strom Thurmond's efforts to write a history of African Americans, revealing the antics of Congressional office workers, publishing house interns, editors, and rival editors.
Publisher: Akashic Books
ISBN: 9781888451573
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Presents a fictitious chronicle of a former senator Strom Thurmond's efforts to write a history of African Americans, revealing the antics of Congressional office workers, publishing house interns, editors, and rival editors.
Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
Author: Percival Everett
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 1555970656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
"Anything we take for granted, Mr. Everett means to show us, may turn out to be a lie." —Wall Street Journal * Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize * Finalist for the PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction * A story inside a story inside a story. A man visits his aging father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is it the novel that the son imagines his father would imagine, if he were to imagine the kind of novel the son would write? Let's simplify: a woman seeks an apprenticeship with a painter, claiming to be his long-lost daughter. A contractor-for-hire named Murphy can't distinguish between the two brothers who employ him. And in Murphy's troubled dreams, Nat Turner imagines the life of William Styron. These narratives twist together with anecdotes from the nursing home, each building on the other until they crest in a wild, outlandish excursion of the inmates led by the father. Anchoring these shifting plotlines is a running commentary between father and son that sheds doubt on the truthfulness of each story. Because, after all, what narrator can we ever trust? Not only is Percival Everett by Virgil Russell a powerful, compassionate meditation on old age and its humiliations, it is an ingenious culmination of Everett's recurring preoccupations. All of his prior work, his metaphysical and philosophical inquiries, his investigations into the nature of narrative, have led to this masterful book. Percival Everett has never been more cunning, more brilliant and subversive, than he is in this, his most important and elusive novel to date.
Publisher: Graywolf Press
ISBN: 1555970656
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
"Anything we take for granted, Mr. Everett means to show us, may turn out to be a lie." —Wall Street Journal * Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize * Finalist for the PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction * A story inside a story inside a story. A man visits his aging father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is it the novel that the son imagines his father would imagine, if he were to imagine the kind of novel the son would write? Let's simplify: a woman seeks an apprenticeship with a painter, claiming to be his long-lost daughter. A contractor-for-hire named Murphy can't distinguish between the two brothers who employ him. And in Murphy's troubled dreams, Nat Turner imagines the life of William Styron. These narratives twist together with anecdotes from the nursing home, each building on the other until they crest in a wild, outlandish excursion of the inmates led by the father. Anchoring these shifting plotlines is a running commentary between father and son that sheds doubt on the truthfulness of each story. Because, after all, what narrator can we ever trust? Not only is Percival Everett by Virgil Russell a powerful, compassionate meditation on old age and its humiliations, it is an ingenious culmination of Everett's recurring preoccupations. All of his prior work, his metaphysical and philosophical inquiries, his investigations into the nature of narrative, have led to this masterful book. Percival Everett has never been more cunning, more brilliant and subversive, than he is in this, his most important and elusive novel to date.
Novel Subjects
Author: Leah A. Milne
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609387627
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
How does contemporary literature contend with the power and responsibility of authorship, particularly when considering marginalized groups? How have the works of multiethnic authors challenged the notion that writing and authorship are neutral or universal? In Novel Subjects, Leah Milne offers a new way to look at multicultural literature by focusing on scenes of writing in contemporary works by authors with marginalized identities. These scenes, she argues, establish authorship as a form of radical self-care—a term we owe to Audre Lorde, who defines self-care as self-preservation and “an act of political warfare.” In engaging in this battle, the works discussed in this study confront limitations on ethnicity and nationality wrought by the institutionalization of multiculturalism. They also focus on identities whose mere presence on the cultural landscape is often perceived as vindictive or willful. Analyzing recent texts by Carmen Maria Machado, Louise Erdrich, Ruth Ozeki, Toni Morrison, and more, Milne connects works across cultures and nationalities in search of reasons for this recent trend of depicting writers as characters in multicultural texts. Her exploration uncovers fiction that embrace unacceptable or marginalized modes of storytelling—such as plagiarism, historical revisions, jokes, and lies—as well as inauthentic, invisible, and unexceptional subjects. These works ultimately reveal a shared goal of expanding the borders of belonging in ethnic and cultural groups, and thus add to the ever-evolving conversations surrounding both multicultural literature and self-care.
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1609387627
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 265
Book Description
How does contemporary literature contend with the power and responsibility of authorship, particularly when considering marginalized groups? How have the works of multiethnic authors challenged the notion that writing and authorship are neutral or universal? In Novel Subjects, Leah Milne offers a new way to look at multicultural literature by focusing on scenes of writing in contemporary works by authors with marginalized identities. These scenes, she argues, establish authorship as a form of radical self-care—a term we owe to Audre Lorde, who defines self-care as self-preservation and “an act of political warfare.” In engaging in this battle, the works discussed in this study confront limitations on ethnicity and nationality wrought by the institutionalization of multiculturalism. They also focus on identities whose mere presence on the cultural landscape is often perceived as vindictive or willful. Analyzing recent texts by Carmen Maria Machado, Louise Erdrich, Ruth Ozeki, Toni Morrison, and more, Milne connects works across cultures and nationalities in search of reasons for this recent trend of depicting writers as characters in multicultural texts. Her exploration uncovers fiction that embrace unacceptable or marginalized modes of storytelling—such as plagiarism, historical revisions, jokes, and lies—as well as inauthentic, invisible, and unexceptional subjects. These works ultimately reveal a shared goal of expanding the borders of belonging in ethnic and cultural groups, and thus add to the ever-evolving conversations surrounding both multicultural literature and self-care.
Approximate Gestures
Author: Anthony Stewart
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807173843
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
In Approximate Gestures, Anthony Stewart argues that the writing of Percival Everett, the acclaimed author of Erasure and more than twenty other works of fiction, compels readers to retrain their thinking habits and to value uncertainty. Stewart maintains that Everett’s fiction challenges its interpreters to question their assumptions, consider the spaces in between categories, and embrace the potential of a larger, more uncertain world in an effort to confront bigotry and similarly limiting patterns of thought. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Stewart proposes that their notion of the schizorevolutionary figure captures the in-between status of many of Everett’s characters as they refuse the constraints of the binary, categorical structures that govern so much of human life. Approximate Gestures engages specifically with the vexed question of discussing race in Everett’s fiction. Stewart frames the stakes of analyzing such subject matter in the writing of an African American novelist whose work rigorously questions critical approaches to race. Requiring readers to engage with black males who are hydrologists, ranchers, college professors, romance novelists, and in one case, a toddler, means entering a world released from habitual frames of reference. Through an examination of a broad selection of novels, Stewart demonstrates the extent to which Everett’s characters inhabit “infinite spaces in between conventional categories” and understand themselves as subjects attempting to navigate social and psychological worlds. Approximate Gestures: Infinite Spaces in the Fiction of Percival Everett encourages readers and critics to think more deeply about how they position themselves in and engage with the world around them. As one of the first books of literary criticism devoted to Everett’s fiction, Stewart’s pathbreaking study models a method for reading the formidable body of work being produced by a major contemporary writer.
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807173843
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
In Approximate Gestures, Anthony Stewart argues that the writing of Percival Everett, the acclaimed author of Erasure and more than twenty other works of fiction, compels readers to retrain their thinking habits and to value uncertainty. Stewart maintains that Everett’s fiction challenges its interpreters to question their assumptions, consider the spaces in between categories, and embrace the potential of a larger, more uncertain world in an effort to confront bigotry and similarly limiting patterns of thought. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Stewart proposes that their notion of the schizorevolutionary figure captures the in-between status of many of Everett’s characters as they refuse the constraints of the binary, categorical structures that govern so much of human life. Approximate Gestures engages specifically with the vexed question of discussing race in Everett’s fiction. Stewart frames the stakes of analyzing such subject matter in the writing of an African American novelist whose work rigorously questions critical approaches to race. Requiring readers to engage with black males who are hydrologists, ranchers, college professors, romance novelists, and in one case, a toddler, means entering a world released from habitual frames of reference. Through an examination of a broad selection of novels, Stewart demonstrates the extent to which Everett’s characters inhabit “infinite spaces in between conventional categories” and understand themselves as subjects attempting to navigate social and psychological worlds. Approximate Gestures: Infinite Spaces in the Fiction of Percival Everett encourages readers and critics to think more deeply about how they position themselves in and engage with the world around them. As one of the first books of literary criticism devoted to Everett’s fiction, Stewart’s pathbreaking study models a method for reading the formidable body of work being produced by a major contemporary writer.
Jesting in Earnest
Author: Derek C. Maus
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611179637
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
A critical analysis of Percival Everett's oeuvre through the lens of Menippean satire Percival Everett, a distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California, is the author of more than thirty books on a wide variety of subjects and genres. Among his many honors are the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, the Huston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction, the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, and the Dos Passos Prize in Literature. Derek C. Maus proposes that the best way to analyze Everett's varied oeuvre is within the framework of Menippean satire, which focuses its ridicule on faulty modes of thinking, especially the kinds of willful ignorance and bad faith that are used to justify corruption, violence, and bigotry. In Jesting in Earnest, Maus critically examines fourteen of Everett's novels and several of his shorter works through the lens of Menippean satire, focusing on how it supports Everett's broader aim of stimulating thoughtful interpretation that is unfettered by common assumptions and preconceived notions.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611179637
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
A critical analysis of Percival Everett's oeuvre through the lens of Menippean satire Percival Everett, a distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California, is the author of more than thirty books on a wide variety of subjects and genres. Among his many honors are the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, the Huston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction, the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, and the Dos Passos Prize in Literature. Derek C. Maus proposes that the best way to analyze Everett's varied oeuvre is within the framework of Menippean satire, which focuses its ridicule on faulty modes of thinking, especially the kinds of willful ignorance and bad faith that are used to justify corruption, violence, and bigotry. In Jesting in Earnest, Maus critically examines fourteen of Everett's novels and several of his shorter works through the lens of Menippean satire, focusing on how it supports Everett's broader aim of stimulating thoughtful interpretation that is unfettered by common assumptions and preconceived notions.
Conversations with Percival Everett
Author: Joe Weixlmann
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496806492
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
For the first eighteen years of his career, Percival Everett (b. 1956) managed to fly under the radar of the literary establishment. He followed his artistic vision down a variety of unconventional paths, including his preference for releasing his books through independent publishers. But with the publication of his novel erasure in 2001, his literary talent could no longer be kept under wraps. The author of more than twenty-five books, Everett has established himself as one of America's—and arguably the world's—premier twenty-first-century fiction writers. Among his many honors since 2000 are Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards for erasure and I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009) and three prominent awards for his 2005 novel Wounded—the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, France's Prix Lucioles des Libraires, and Italy's Premio Vallombrosa Gregor von Rezzori Prize. Interviews collected in this volume—several of which appear in print or in English translation for the first time—display Everett's abundant wit as well as the independence of thought that has led to his work being described as “characteristically uncharacteristic.” At one moment he speaks with great sophistication about the fact that African American authors are forced to overcome constraining expectations about their subject matter that white writers are not. And in the next he talks about training mules or quips about “Jim Crow,” a pet bird Everett had on his ranch outside Los Angeles. Everett discusses race and gender, his ecological interests, the real and mythic American West, the eclectic nature of his work, the craft of writing, language and linguistic theory, and much more.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496806492
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
For the first eighteen years of his career, Percival Everett (b. 1956) managed to fly under the radar of the literary establishment. He followed his artistic vision down a variety of unconventional paths, including his preference for releasing his books through independent publishers. But with the publication of his novel erasure in 2001, his literary talent could no longer be kept under wraps. The author of more than twenty-five books, Everett has established himself as one of America's—and arguably the world's—premier twenty-first-century fiction writers. Among his many honors since 2000 are Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards for erasure and I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009) and three prominent awards for his 2005 novel Wounded—the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction, France's Prix Lucioles des Libraires, and Italy's Premio Vallombrosa Gregor von Rezzori Prize. Interviews collected in this volume—several of which appear in print or in English translation for the first time—display Everett's abundant wit as well as the independence of thought that has led to his work being described as “characteristically uncharacteristic.” At one moment he speaks with great sophistication about the fact that African American authors are forced to overcome constraining expectations about their subject matter that white writers are not. And in the next he talks about training mules or quips about “Jim Crow,” a pet bird Everett had on his ranch outside Los Angeles. Everett discusses race and gender, his ecological interests, the real and mythic American West, the eclectic nature of his work, the craft of writing, language and linguistic theory, and much more.
Post-Soul Satire
Author: Derek C. Maus
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617039985
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
From 30 Americans to Angry White Boy, from Bamboozled to The Boondocks, from Chappelle's Show to The Colored Museum, this collection of twenty-one essays takes an interdisciplinary look at the flowering of satire and its influence in defining new roles in black identity. As a mode of expression for a generation of writers, comedians, cartoonists, musicians, filmmakers, and visual/conceptual artists, satire enables collective questioning of many of the fundamental presumptions about black identity in the wake of the civil rights movement. Whether taking place in popular and controversial television shows, in a provocative series of short internet films, in prize-winning novels and plays, in comic strips, or in conceptual hip-hop albums, this satirical impulse has found a receptive audience both within and outside the black community. Such works have been variously called “post-black,” “post-soul,” and examples of a “New Black Aesthetic.” Whatever the label, this collection bears witness to a noteworthy shift regarding the ways in which African American satirists feel constrained by conventional obligations when treating issues of racial identity, historical memory, and material representation of blackness. Among the artists examined in this collection are Paul Beatty, Dave Chappelle, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino), Spike Lee, Aaron McGruder, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Suzan Lori-Parks, Mickalene Thomas, Touré, Kara Walker, and George C. Wolfe. The essays intentionally seek out interconnections among various forms of artistic expression. Contributors look at the ways in which contemporary African American satire engages in a broad ranging critique that exposes fraudulent, outdated, absurd, or otherwise damaging mindsets and behaviors both within and outside the African American community.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1617039985
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 341
Book Description
From 30 Americans to Angry White Boy, from Bamboozled to The Boondocks, from Chappelle's Show to The Colored Museum, this collection of twenty-one essays takes an interdisciplinary look at the flowering of satire and its influence in defining new roles in black identity. As a mode of expression for a generation of writers, comedians, cartoonists, musicians, filmmakers, and visual/conceptual artists, satire enables collective questioning of many of the fundamental presumptions about black identity in the wake of the civil rights movement. Whether taking place in popular and controversial television shows, in a provocative series of short internet films, in prize-winning novels and plays, in comic strips, or in conceptual hip-hop albums, this satirical impulse has found a receptive audience both within and outside the black community. Such works have been variously called “post-black,” “post-soul,” and examples of a “New Black Aesthetic.” Whatever the label, this collection bears witness to a noteworthy shift regarding the ways in which African American satirists feel constrained by conventional obligations when treating issues of racial identity, historical memory, and material representation of blackness. Among the artists examined in this collection are Paul Beatty, Dave Chappelle, Trey Ellis, Percival Everett, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino), Spike Lee, Aaron McGruder, Lynn Nottage, ZZ Packer, Suzan Lori-Parks, Mickalene Thomas, Touré, Kara Walker, and George C. Wolfe. The essays intentionally seek out interconnections among various forms of artistic expression. Contributors look at the ways in which contemporary African American satire engages in a broad ranging critique that exposes fraudulent, outdated, absurd, or otherwise damaging mindsets and behaviors both within and outside the African American community.
The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers
Author: Tom Mack
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611173485
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers expands the range of writers included in the landmark South Carolina Encyclopedia. This guide updates the entries on writers featured in the original encyclopedia and augments that list substantially with dozens of new essays on additional authors from the late eighteenth century to the present who have contributed to the Palmetto State's distinctive literary heritage. Each profile in this concise reference includes essential biographical facts and critical assessments to place the featured writers in the larger context of South Carolina's literary tradition. The guide comprises 128 entries written by more than sixty-nine literary scholars, and it also highlights the sixty-nine writers inducted thus far into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, which serves as the state's literary hall of fame. Rich in natural beauty and historic complexity, South Carolina has long been a source of inspiration for writers. The talented novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, journalists, historians, and other writers featured here represent the countless individuals who have shared tales and lore of South Carolina. The guide includes a foreword by George Singleton, author of two novels, four short story collections and one nonfiction book, and a 2010 inductee of the South Carolina Academy of Authors.
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611173485
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
The South Carolina Encyclopedia Guide to South Carolina Writers expands the range of writers included in the landmark South Carolina Encyclopedia. This guide updates the entries on writers featured in the original encyclopedia and augments that list substantially with dozens of new essays on additional authors from the late eighteenth century to the present who have contributed to the Palmetto State's distinctive literary heritage. Each profile in this concise reference includes essential biographical facts and critical assessments to place the featured writers in the larger context of South Carolina's literary tradition. The guide comprises 128 entries written by more than sixty-nine literary scholars, and it also highlights the sixty-nine writers inducted thus far into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, which serves as the state's literary hall of fame. Rich in natural beauty and historic complexity, South Carolina has long been a source of inspiration for writers. The talented novelists, essayists, poets, playwrights, journalists, historians, and other writers featured here represent the countless individuals who have shared tales and lore of South Carolina. The guide includes a foreword by George Singleton, author of two novels, four short story collections and one nonfiction book, and a 2010 inductee of the South Carolina Academy of Authors.
The Story of "Me"
Author: Marjorie Worthington
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496207572
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 231
Book Description
Autofiction, or works in which the eponymous author appears as a fictionalized character, represents a significant trend in postwar American literature, when it proliferated to become a kind of postmodern cliché. The Story of “Me” charts the history and development of this genre, analyzing its narratological effects and discussing its cultural implications. By tracing autofiction’s conceptual issues through case studies and an array of texts, Marjorie Worthington sheds light on a number of issues for postwar American writing: the maleness of the postmodern canon—and anxieties created by the supposed waning of male privilege—the relationship between celebrity and authorship, the influence of theory, the angst stemming from claims of the “death of the author,” and the rise of memoir culture. Worthington constructs and contextualizes a bridge between the French literary context, from which the term originated, and the rise of autofiction among various American literary movements, from modernism to New Criticism to New Journalism. The Story of “Me” demonstrates that the burgeoning of autofiction serves as a barometer of American literature, from modernist authorial effacement to postmodern literary self-consciousness.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496207572
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 231
Book Description
Autofiction, or works in which the eponymous author appears as a fictionalized character, represents a significant trend in postwar American literature, when it proliferated to become a kind of postmodern cliché. The Story of “Me” charts the history and development of this genre, analyzing its narratological effects and discussing its cultural implications. By tracing autofiction’s conceptual issues through case studies and an array of texts, Marjorie Worthington sheds light on a number of issues for postwar American writing: the maleness of the postmodern canon—and anxieties created by the supposed waning of male privilege—the relationship between celebrity and authorship, the influence of theory, the angst stemming from claims of the “death of the author,” and the rise of memoir culture. Worthington constructs and contextualizes a bridge between the French literary context, from which the term originated, and the rise of autofiction among various American literary movements, from modernism to New Criticism to New Journalism. The Story of “Me” demonstrates that the burgeoning of autofiction serves as a barometer of American literature, from modernist authorial effacement to postmodern literary self-consciousness.