The Novel and Europe [Hardcover]

This book examines the ways in which fiction has addressed the continent since the Second World War. Drawing on novelists from Europe and elsewhere, the volume analyzes the literary response to seven dominant concerns (ideas of Europe, conflict, borders, empire, unification, migration, and marginalization), offering a ground-breaking study of how modern and contemporary writers have participated in the European debate. The sixteen essays view the chosen writers, not as representatives of national literatures, but as participants in transcontinental discussion that has occurred across borders, cultures, and languages. In doing so, the contributors raise questions about the forms of power operating across and radiating from Europe, challenging both the institutionalized divisions of the Cold War and the triumphalist narrative of continental unity currently being written in Brussels.

Literary criticism has constituted the field of European literature in various ways: as a collection of national literatures; as a collection of canonical authors; and as a collection of canonical texts disseminated around Europe. This volume of essays tests an alternative approach to the topic. Taking Europe as the starting point of study, rather than texts or authors, Imagining the Continent in Contemporary Fiction explores ways in which literature has reflected on continental realities since 1945. Through a focus on fiction, contributors examine ideas and concerns arising from continent-wide experience, activity and identity which have traversed borders and circulated across Europe and beyond. In seeking to formulate a literature about Europe, the volume highlights intellectual relations between national literatures, drawing together a range of cultural heritages without suggesting cultural unity.

Contents

 

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgements