The essays in this volume focus on different prose and audiovisual narratives and their academic and cultural significance as seen in the twenty-first century. Their diverse interpretations of the novel as a genre provide a current academic overview on the variety of interpretive cultures and traditions.Divided into three sections, the book consciously takes an international perspective in both narrative theory and novel studies in order to deepen the reader’s understanding of classic American and European authors including Gustave Flaubert, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce, Doris Lessing, Jack London, J. M. Coetzee, and David Lodge. In addition, it also offers a profound contribution to international scholarship as it covers works of classic and contemporary Hungarian and Central European writers that have not been discussed in English before. With its unprecedented insights into the depth and diversity of narrative prose traditions, the book will inspire innovative approaches to the concept of the novel in European academic criticism today.