Rebirth of the Nouveau Roman: 9/11 as a Crisis of Confidence in American Literary Aesthetics

• Autores: Daniel Davis Wood
• Localización: Altre Modernità: Rivista di studi letterari e culturali, ISSN-e 2035-7680, Nº. Extra 2, 2011 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Número especial 9/11/2011), págs. 134-145
• Idioma: francés
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• Resumen

  • This article argues that 9/11 created a crisis of confidence amongst writers of American fiction by problematizing literary realism�s claims to verisimiltude and so undermining it as a plausible and credible mode of fiction. Surveying the post-9/11 debate over the merits and shortcomings of realism, this article suggests that the unlikely beneficiary of this crisis of confidence has been the contemporary nouveau roman, a mode of fiction that originates from within the literary traditions of continental Europe. The emergence of writers, publishers, reviewers, and readers attracted to the nouveau roman as a mode of literature in opposition to realism�and engaged in its production, evaluation, promotion, and dissemination�seems to signify a widespread dissatisfaction with the predominant American literary response to the crisis of 9/11. Providing a brief history of the emergence of this post-9/11 institutional support for the nouveau roman, this article contends that the nouveau roman requires a place in literary histories of post-9/11 American fiction even if it does not explicitly address the subject of 9/11 itself