Fictions of the War on Terror

This book argues that there are a number of contemporary novels that challenge the reductive 'us and them' binaries that have been prevalent not only in politics and the global media since 9/11, but also in many works within the emerging genre of '9/11 fiction' itself.

'In this book, Daniel O'Gorman offers a series of radically new interpretive frames for reading the crisis of 9/11 and its aftermath and the multiple terms in which texts have mediated that crisis. It should have a wide appeal and make a real impact, not least because it combines an impressively detailed knowledge of current work in this field with an understanding of just how that work can be usefully expanded and extended - to include writing from outside the United States and texts that, at first sight, appear to be unconcerned with 9/11. In short, it shifts the critical paradigms and offers signposts for future discussions of the subject - and, in doing so, makes itself indispensable. - Richard Gray, Fellow of the British Academy and author of After the Fall: American Literature Since 9/11

Autorentext
Daniel O'Gorman is Associate Lecturer in English at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He has published articles on post-9/11 fiction in Textual Practice and Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction , as well as multiple book chapters on Salman Rushdie.

Inhalt
Introduction 1. New Constellations: Judith Butler's 'Frame' and Dave Eggers' What Is the What 2. Gazing Inward in Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City and Teju Cole's Open City 3. Connective Dissonance: Refiguring Difference in Fiction of the Iraq War 4. Ambivalent Alterities: Pakistani Post-9/11 Fiction in English 5. [T]he stories of anywhere are also the stories of everywhere else': Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and The Enchantress of Florence Conclusion Bibliography Index