Reconsidering the Postmodern: European Literature Beyond Relativism

From Grunberg to Houellebecq, from Hemon to Marias: contemporary literature is deeply influenced by postmodernism. This timely study takes its reader on a tour of the European novel and the critical discussion around it. Now that postmodernism has been declared moribund, it is time to critically evaluate its literary legacy. Have we gone beyond it in literature and why would we want to go beyond? Twelve specialists in the national literatures sketch the outlines of the debate. Turning to the novels, they find them to be engaged, but not uncritically so. Personal, and still ironic; historical, but not nostalgic; Reconsidering the Postmodern reveals how the European novel has renewed itself.