Madelena Gonzalez

Fiction after the Fatwa: Salman Rushdie and the Charm of Catastrophe proposes for the first time an examination of what Rushdie has achieved as a writer since the fourteenth of February 1989, the date of the fatwa. This study argues that his constant questioning of fictional form and the language used to articulate it have opened up new opportunities and further possibilities for writing in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Through close readings and intensive textual analysis, arranged chronologically, Fiction after the Fatwa provides a thought-provoking reflection on the writer’s achievements over the last thirteen years. Aimed principally at academics and students, but also of interest to the general reader, it engages with the specific nature of the post-fatwa fiction as it moves from the fairy-tale world of Haroun and the Sea of Stories to the heartbreaking post-realism of Fury.

Salman Rushdie and the Charm of Catastrophe

Fiction after the Fatwa

Richard Bradford

Alison Baverstock

Contemporary Publishing and the Culture of Books is a comprehensive resource that builds bridges between the traditional focus and methodologies of literary studies and the actualities of modern and contemporary literature, including the realities of professional writing, the conventions and practicalities of the publishing world, and its connections between literary publishing and other media. Focusing on the relationship between modern literature and the publishing industry, the volume enables students and academics to extend the text-based framework of modules on contemporary writing into detailed expositions of the culture and industry which bring these texts into existence; it brings economic considerations into line alongside creative issues, and examines how employing marketing strategies are utilized to promote and sell books. Sections cover: The standard university-course specifications of contemporary writing, offering an extensive picture of the social, economic, and cultural contexts of these literary genres The impact and status of non-literary writing, and how this compares with certain literary genres as an index to contemporary culture and a reflection of the state of the publishing industry The practicalities and conventions of the publishing industry Contextual aspects of literary culture and the book industry, visiting the broader spheres of publishing, promotion, bookselling, and literary culture Carefully linked chapters allow readers to tie key elements of the publishing industry to the particular demands and features of contemporary literary genres and writing, offering a detailed guide to the ways in which the three core areas of culture, economics, and pragmatics intersect in the world of publishing. Further to being a valuable resource for those studying English or Creative Writing, the volume is a key text for degrees in which Publishing is a component, and is relevant to those aspects of Media Studies that look at interactions between the media and literature/publishing.

Contemporary Publishing and the Culture of Books

Patrice Brasseur

Contemporary theatre is one of the best ways for ethno-cultural minorities to express themselves, whether they be of indigenous origin or immigrants. It is often used to denounce social injustice and discrimination and, more generally, it helps to air questions debated in the wider community. It may also express itself thanks to the staging of collective memory, for it constitutes a privileged space for the exploration of the trauma of the past (colonial, for example), as well as providing a means of effecting the reconfiguration of a new identity, or of articulating an uneasiness about that identity. Should minority theatre increase its visibility in relation to the mainstream, or, on the contrary, remain on the margins and assert its specificity? This question is at the centre of French-Canadian experience, for example, but also applies to other postcolonial societies, in Europe and elsewhere. In order to maintain its cultural authenticity, should this type of theatre distinguish itself from a multiculturalism that runs the risk of political and social recuperation? If it is unable to resist the model proposed by globalization and widespread cultural dissemination, will it lose its legitimacy? Can, and should there be, a form of popular art at the service of the community? The term “minority” raises questions that will be examined by the articles collected in this volume. What is the definition of a minority? Does this term refer to experimental and avant-garde art forms as well as to ethno-cultural drama? Contemporary theatre is characterized by an aesthetics of hybridity—in what measure is this the case for theatre outside the mainstream? The exploration of this kind of theatre necessitates an examination of the very concept of theatre per se. Since the development of the electronic media as the privileged vector of culture, has not the theatrical genre itself become a minority art form? These are some of the pressing questions that this volume will try to address, thanks to a cross-cultural, multidisciplinary approach that aims to reveal the rich diversity of the field under study.

Constructing Identity

Authenticity and Legitimacy in Minority Theatre

Kevin De Ornellas

James Ward

Stephen Butler

THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writing in Britain, crime fiction, and the influence of globalization on British and Irish Literature. Written in four parts, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature includes comprehensive examinations of individual authors, as well as a variety of themes that have come to define the contemporary period: ethnicity, gender, nationality, and more. A thorough guide to the main figures and concepts in contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, this two-volume set: Includes studies of notable figures such as Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter, as well as more recently influential writers such as Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters. Covers topics such as LGBT fiction, androgyny in contemporary British Literature, and post-Troubles Northern Irish Fiction Features a broad range of writers and topics covered by distinguished academics Includes an analysis of the interplay between individual authors and the major themes of the day, and whether an examination of the latter enables us to appreciate the former. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature provides essential reading for students as well as academics seeking to learn more about the history and future direction of contemporary British and Irish Literature.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature

Fiction after the Fatwa: Salman Rushdie and the Charm of Catastrophe proposes for the first time an examination of what Rushdie has achieved as a writer since the fourteenth of February 1989, the date of the fatwa. This study argues that his constant questioning of fictional form and the language used to articulate it have opened up new opportunities and further possibilities for writing in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Through close readings and intensive textual analysis, arranged chronologically, Fiction after the Fatwa provides a thought-provoking reflection on the writer's achievements over the last thirteen years. Aimed principally at academics and students, but also of interest to the general reader, it engages with the specific nature of the post-fatwa fiction as it moves from the fairy-tale world of Haroun and the Sea of Stories to the heartbreaking post-realism of Fury.

Fiction After the Fatwa

René Agostini

The conviction that the development and promotion of the arts, humanities and culture through the study of literature and the aesthetic are the fundamental constituents of any progress in society is at the heart of this volume. The essays gathered here explore the role of the imagination and aesthetic awareness in an age when the corporatization of knowledge is in the process of transforming literary studies, and political commitment is in danger of disappearing behind a supposedly post-ideological late-capitalist consensus. The main focus of the volume is the mutual implication of aesthetics and ideology and the status and value of different types of art within the political arena. Challenging issues in contemporary aesthetics are examined within the wider framework of current debates on the disappearance of the real, the crisis in representation, and the use of new media. The wide range of examples collected here, stretching from experimental poetry in post-war Germany, political commitment in twentieth-century French theatre, and countercultural Rumanian theatre under Ceaușescu, to Neo-Victorian fiction, Verbatim theatre in the UK, and political theatre for the masses in Estonia, vouchsafe unique insights into the intersection of aesthetics and ideology and the practical consequences thereof. As such, the volume opens up a space for a meaningful engagement with authentic forms of art from inside and outside the Anglosphere, and, ultimately, uses these examples as a platform from which to imagine some form of “aesthethics”, representing an ideal union of aesthetics and ideology. This concept, first coined by the French philosopher Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, will prove to be relevant both within the parameters of the examples discussed here, but also beyond, for the contributors to this volume are unanimous in refusing to believe that aesthetics and ideology can exist one without the other, and in recognizing the centrality of ethics in any discussion of these notions.

Aesthetics and Ideology in Contemporary Literature and Drama

Hélène Laplace-Claverie

All over the world, in the most varied contexts, contemporary theatre is a rich source for increasing the visibility of communities generally perceived by others as minorities, or those who see themselves as such. Whether of a linguistic, ethnic, political, social, cultural or sexual nature, the claims of minorities enjoy a privileged medium in theatre. Perhaps it is because theatre itself is linked to the notions of centre and periphery, conformism and marginality, domination and subjugation – notions that minority theatre constantly examines by staging them – that it is so sensitive to the issues of troubled and conflicted identity and able to give them a universal resonance. Among the questions raised by this volume, is that of the relationship between the particular and the more general aims of this type of theatre. How is it possible to speak to everyone, or at least to the majority, when one is representing the voice of the few? Beyond such considerations, urgent critical examination of the function and aims of minority theatre is needed. To what kind of public is such drama addressed? Does it have an exemplary nature? How is it possible to avoid the pitfalls and the dead end of ghettoization? Certain types of audience-specific theatre are examined in this context, as, for example, theatre as therapy, theatre as an educational tool, and gay theatre. Particular attention is paid to the claims of minorities within culturally and economically dominant western countries. These are some of the avenues explored by this volume which aims to answer fundamental questions such as: What is minority theatre and why does theatre, a supposedly bourgeois, if not to say elitist, art form, have such affinity with the margins? What if, particularly in contemporary society, the theatre as a form, were merely playing out its fundamentally marginal status? The authors of these essays show how different forms of minority theatre can challenge cultural consensus and homogenization, while also aspiring to universality. They also address the central question of the place and status of apparently marginal forms of theatre in the context of globalization and in doing so re-examine theatre itself as a genre. Not only do they illustrate how minority theatre can challenge the dominant paradigms that govern society, but they also suggest their own more flexible and challenging frameworks for theatrical activity.

Madelena Gonzalez

Books

Your next favorite book is out there