Overview

The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures is the first book that examines the concept of risk in non-anglophone world literature. Focusing on how risk is produced and reshaped by literary aesthetics, Li argues that risk is a creative rather than negative force in world literature. Instead of disaster narratives, Li approaches risk from the fresh perspective of ludic aesthetics, or playful, gamelike, illusionistic and experimental literary strategies. Comparatively analysing an original selection of texts by modern and contemporary French-Francophone and East Asian writers, each chapter focuses on a particular genre such as the novel, life-writing, poetry, and image-texts. The reimagination of risk in literature is revealed to be closely related to different forms of play such as structured games, masquerade, poetic and intermedial experimentation. Franco-East Asian literatures help us rethink risk in linguistically diverse and cross-cultural contexts, providing a new paradigm for comparative criticism and world literature.

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9781009670227

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Xiaofan Amy Li is Associate Professor in Comparative Cultural Studies at University College London. She is the author of Comparative Encounters between Artaud, Michaux and the Zhuangzi (2015). She was Junior Research Fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford, and is a member of the International Comparative Literature Association's Research Committee on Literary Theory.

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