This book traces the development of literary poetics after postmodernism and outlines the most important features of what is defined here as «post-postmodernism». This new literary form simultaneously recovers the characteristics of the traditional novel and abandons the ironic approach of postmodernism, while also retaining some postmodern narrative devices such as autofiction and metafiction. To render the global dimension of this phenomenon, this book focuses on the theme of the Second World War, an increasingly pivotal subject for historical novels in the twenty-first century worldwide. The study analyses the work of a variety of authors from several national literatures, focusing mainly on Roberto Bolaño, William T. Vollmann and Jonathan Littell, and drawing comparison with other authors, such as Rachel Seiffert, Sarah Waters, Laurent Binet, Ian McEwan and Giorgio Falco.

Autorentext

Marco Malvestio is EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Padua and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Padua and was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Inhalt

Contents: Introduction: Post- Postmodernism and the Second World War - Board Games, Serial Killers and the Banality of Evil: The Part about Roberto Bolaño - A Collection of Parables: William T. Vollmann's Europe Central - «A Real Morality Play»: Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones - Conclusion: The Second World War and the Post-Postmodern Novel.