The Global Novel

Praise

One of the BBC’s 10 Books to Read in April 2017

“Who has the authority to speak for the world? Are Western ideals central to global literature, or do speculative novels that unspool Western ideas to tragic ends (like Atwood’s ‘Oryx and Crake’ and Houellebecq’s ‘The Possibility of an Island’) epitomize literary colonialism? Kirsch’s work is curious and illuminating.” New York Times Book Review

“Timely, direct, and full of good sense, The Global Novel brilliantly discards critical pieties to address numerous arguments for what the twenty-first-century novel is becoming.” World Literature Today

“Kirsch’s analysis thoughtfully adds to the existing conversation, making a persuasive case for the global novel.” Library Journal

“In an era of cheap air travel, digital communications, consumerism, worldwide urbanization, and the dominance of English ... readers, editors, and critics found it easy to welcome works by Haruki Murakami or Orhan Pamuk and the snapshots of foreign life they reveal.... Kirsch argues in his new book [that] these circumstances have given rise to an entirely new literary category.” New Republic

“A critical appreciation of ‘world literature,’ highlighting works that combine specifics of locality with global reach.... Kirsch is shrewd on what he terms ‘a new genre of English-language fiction...call it migrant literature,’ which is less about an immigrant's arrival than a transitional passage, one that reinforces the notion of globalization in novels whose cultural roots are tougher to untangle. An insightful addition to the Columbia Global Reports roster.” Kirkus Reviews