Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I The long journey
- Part II Search for a form
- 5 The neo-slave narrative
- 6 Coming of age in the African American novel
- 7 The blues novel
- 8 From modernism to postmodernism
- 9 The African American novel and popular culture
- Part III African American voices
- Bibliography
- Index
- Series List
8 - From modernism to postmodernism
from Part II - Search for a form
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Part I The long journey
- Part II Search for a form
- 5 The neo-slave narrative
- 6 Coming of age in the African American novel
- 7 The blues novel
- 8 From modernism to postmodernism
- 9 The African American novel and popular culture
- Part III African American voices
- Bibliography
- Index
- Series List
Summary
A considerable number of African American novels written after 1970 are inspired by postmodernist themes and strategies. The postmodernist novel is essentially antimimetic; it frequently questions the linearity of plot structure, confuses time sequences, blends levels of reality and fictionality, fragments characters, looks at events through several focalizing lenses arranged one behind the other, enjoys unreliable narrators, falls short of expectations, breaks rules, undermines conventions, and sometimes even resists interpretation. All this it does with an excessive blending of wit, irony, and paradox. In short, it favors experimental, avant-garde, progressive literary techniques and approaches.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel , pp. 139 - 155Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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