Fiction Across Borders: Imagining the Lives of Others in Late-Twentieth-Century Novels

Shameem Black

Published by Columbia University Press 2010

Fiction Across Borders

Imagining the Lives of Others in Late-Twentieth-Century Novels

Shameem Black

https://doi.org/10.7312/blac14978

Overview
Contents

About this book

Theorists of Orientalism and postcolonialism argue that novelists betray political and cultural anxieties when characterizing "the Other." Shameem Black takes a different stance. Turning a fresh eye toward several key contemporary novelists, she reveals how "border-crossing" fiction represents socially diverse groups without resorting to stereotype, idealization, or other forms of imaginative constraint. Focusing on the work of J. M. Coetzee, Amitav Ghosh, Jeffrey Eugenides, Ruth Ozeki, Charles Johnson, Gish Jen, and Rupa Bajwa, Black introduces an interpretative lens that captures the ways in which these authors envision an ethics of representing social difference. They not only offer sympathetic portrayals of the lives of others but also detail the processes of imagining social difference.

Whether depicting the multilingual worlds of South and Southeast Asia, the exportation of American culture abroad, or the racial tension of postapartheid South Africa, these transcultural representations explore social and political hierarchies in constructive ways. Boldly confronting the orthodoxies of recent literary criticism, Fiction Across Borders builds upon such seminal works as Edward Said's Orientalism and offers a provocative new study of the late twentieth-century novel.

Author / Editor information

Shameem Black is assistant professor of English at Yale University, where she specializes in questions of globalization in contemporary literature.

Reviews

...a rich, learned study that explores the ethics of reading, avoids narrow theoretical adherence, develops a useful notion of the "crowded self," and delivers productive analyses of a wide variety of texts.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction. Toward an Ethics of Border- Crossing Fiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1 Crowded Self and Crowded Style Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2 Everyday Sentiment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
3 Ethnic Reversals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
4 Middle Grounds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
5 Challenging Language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
6 Sacrificing the Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
Postscript Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 332

eBook

Published: January 12, 2010
ISBN: 9780231520614