Overview

Caren Irr's survey of more than 125 novels outlines the dramatic resurgence of the American political novel in the twenty-first century. She explores the writings of Chris Abani, Susan Choi, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Díaz, Dave Eggers, Jeffrey Eugenides, Aleksandar Hemon, Hari Kunzru, Dinaw Mengestu, Norman Rush, Gary Shteyngart, and others as they rethink stories of migration, the Peace Corps, nationalism and neoliberalism, revolution, and the expatriate experience. Taken together, these innovations define a new literary form: the geopolitical novel. More cosmopolitan and socially critical than domestic realism, the geopolitical novel provides new ways of understanding crucial political concepts to meet the needs of a new century.

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9780231164405

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Reviews

Toward the Geopolitical Novel is an original, frequently brilliant, and indefatigably learned book. It will make a vital contribution to the understanding of contemporary literary fiction in the United States and of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature more generally. -- Sean McCann, author of Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism Toward the Geopolitical Novel is lucidly conceived and forcefully argued, ranging across a formidable spectrum of writers to set a new agenda for understanding the contemporary novel. Caren Irr provokes fresh discussions about the critical and cultural horizons of the novel since 2000, enabling us to chart how historical fiction has developed formally after postmodernism. -- David James, author of Modernist Futures: Innovation and Inheritance in the Contemporary Novel Irr has written a superb study, one that contributes greatly to our appreciation of the new dimensions of contemporary U.S. fiction. Perhaps the most exciting aspect lies in Irr's willingness to conceive of her subject, not on the basis of a handful of texts, but on a voluminous array of novels. The historical nuance and theoretical edge of this broadly based inquiry exhibit both her grasp of interpretative subtleties and her luminous powers of synthesis. It is simply the best book we have yet on the literature of this century. -- Gordon Hutner, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Toward the Geopolitical Novel is an original, frequently brilliant, and indefatigably learned book. It will make a vital contribution to the understanding of contemporary literary fiction in the U.S. and of twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature more generally. -- Sean McCann Toward the Geopolitical Novel is lucidly conceived and forcefully argued, ranging across a formidable spectrum of writers to set a new agenda for understanding the contemporary novel. Caren Irr provokes fresh discussions about the critical and cultural horizons of the novel since 2000, enabling us to chart how historical fiction has developed formally after postmodernism. With its impressively wide ambit, this book has the potential to transform the way readers of contemporary literature register the multivalent 'politics of emerging genres' on what is an unprecedented scale. -- David James, Queen Mary, University of London, author of Modernist Futures: Innovation and Inheritance in the Contemporary Novel

Author Information

Caren Irr is professor of English at Brandeis University and author of Pink Pirates: Contemporary American Women Writers and Copyright.

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