The Anglophone Novel in the Twenty-First Century

In an age pervaded by global crises and planetary concerns, the Anglophone novel is undergoing significant transformations - as are the theoretical vantage points from which literary scholars study literature. This handbook aims to establish a decidedly transnational and global perspective on the contemporary novel in English. In addition to offering frameworks for theorising Anglophone literature (postcolonial studies, world literary studies, new sociological approaches, and more), it surveys (trans)cultural contexts of Anglophone fiction, literary responses to global concerns, and new novelistic forms as well as transformations of established genres. Addressing students, professors, and literary scholars alike, the volume explores the following key questions: What are the dominant themes and topics of 21st-century Anglophone novels? Which cultural dynamics have impacted the development of Anglophone fiction, roughly over the past two decades? How can we link these developments to the genre of the novel with its European legacies? What authors - from all parts of the globe - have shaped the Anglophone literary field? Which works are among the most significant novels of the new millennium so far, and how have they altered and propelled our very notion of 'the Anglophone novel'? What new forms of the novel have emerged in recent years, and how have established genres been transformed to negotiate transnational concerns? How can we read contemporary novels as articulations of both local and global narratives? Providing multifaceted answers to these and several other questions, the chapters in this handbook offer different models for investigating the contemporary Anglophone novel on a transnational plane. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. THE CONTEMPORARY ANGLOPHONE NOVEL IN THEORY 1. ALEXANDER SCHERR, NADIA BUTT & ANSGAR NÜNNING Fictions of Transculturality in an Age of Global Connectivity: The Anglophone Novel in the Twenty-First Century 11 2. ALEXANDER SCHERR The World of the Contemporary Anglophone Novel: Sociological Approaches to Twenty-First-Century Literature 31 II. TRANSCULTURAL IDENTITIES, GLOBAL FORMS OF TRAVEL, AND NEW ENCOUNTERS 3. HANNA TEICHLER Transcultural Memory and Transoceanic Entanglements in Abdulrazak Gurnah's (1994) and Amitav Ghosh's (2008-2015) 55 4. STEFANIE KEMMERER & PAVAN KUMAR MALREDDY Contemporary Arab Novels in English: Political Resistance in the City Spaces of Arab Spring Novels by Saleem Haddad and Omar Robert Hamilton 69 5. CAROLIN GEBAUER Reframing Migration in a Globalised World: Representations of Mobility in Dina Nayeri's (2017) and Xiaolu Guo's (2020) 83 6. MAGDALENA PFALZGRAF World Literary Citizenship in Anglophone African Novels: Self-Perception and Afropolitan Globality in Sefi Atta's (2012) and Valerie Tagwira's (2020) 101 7. MARION GYMNICH Speaking English in the Global World: Multilingualism and Translation in Nnedi Okorafor's (2011) and Alexis Wright's (2013) 119 III. GLOBAL CONCERNS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY ANGLOPHONE NOVEL 8. KYLIE CRANE Flows and Eddies of the Anthropocene in Anglophone Novels: Helon Habila's (2010) and Monique Roffey's (2012) 137 9. MELISSA KENNEDY Critiquing Capitalism: The Neoliberal Self-Help Entrepreneur in Aravind Adiga's (2008) and Rahul Kanakia's (2016) 153 10. GIGI ADAIR Queer Diasporic Bodies, Caribbean Urbanity, and Global Flows: Shani Mootoo's (2008) and Oonya Kempadoo's (2013) 169 11. ROMAN BARTOSCH Multispecies Fictions: Love and Loss Beyond the Human in Zakes Mda's (2005) and Henrietta Rose-Innes' (2015) 185 IV. NEW NARRATIVE FORMS AND TRANSFORMATIONS OF GENRES 12. JAN RUPP From Fictions of Migration to Refugee Literature: Caryl Phillips' (2003) and Mohsin Hamid's (2017) 203 13. LARS ECKSTEIN Plural Worlds: Decolonial Realism in Marlon James' (2009) and Alexis Wright's (2006) 219 14. ALEXANDRA EFFE Hybrid Fiction-Nonfiction Storytelling: Speaking Positions Between Documentary, Criticism, Autobiography, and Fiction in J. M. Coetzee's (2003) and Teju Cole's (2014 [2007]) 235 15. ANNA TABOURATZIDIS Globalised Dystopias: Precarious Futures in Emily St. John Mandel's (2014) and Ling Ma's (2018) 251 16. ANYA HEISE-VON DER LIPPE Canadian Indigenous Gothic: Waubgeshig Rice's (2018), Cherie Dimaline's (2019), and Eden Robinson's (2017) 267 17. NADIA BUTT & MICHELLE STORK The Anglophone Road Novel: Moving Memories, Histories, and Identities in Jamal Mahjoub's (2003) and Bernardine Evaristo's (2005) 283