A History of the Surrealist Novel

The book offers a rich, long, and elastic historiography of the surrealist novel, exploring texts often left out of previous critical accounts.

Anna Watz (Edited by)

9781316514153, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 February 2023

394 pages
23.5 x 15.4 x 2.6 cm, 0.69 kg

A History of the Surrealist Novel offers a rich, long, and elastic historiography of the surrealist novel, taking into consideration an abundance of texts previously left out of critical accounts. Its twenty thematically organized chapters examine surrealist prose texts written in French, English, Spanish, German, Greek, and Japanese, from the emergence of the surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s, through the post-war and postmodern periods, and up to the contemporary moment. This approach extends received narratives regarding surrealism's geographical locations and considers its transnational movement and modes of circulation. Moreover, it challenges critical biases that have defined surrealism in predominantly masculine terms, and which tie the movement to the interwar or early post-war years. This book will appeal both to scholars and students of surrealism and its legacies, modernist literature, and the history of the novel.

Introduction Anna Watz
Part I. Marvellous Beginnings: 1. Autobiography Katharine Conley
2. Diverging genealogies of the surrealist unconscious Jean-Michel Rabaté
3. Automatism, autobiography, and thanatography in the surrealist novel Abigail Susik
4. Urban nature: the city in the surrealist novel Effie Rentzou
5. Nostalgia and childhood in the surrealist novel David Hopkins
6. Surrealist collage narrative Elza Adamowicz
Part II. Transgression and Excess: 7. The surrealist novel and the gothic Neil Matheson
8. Surrealism's Anti-bildungsroman Natalya Lusty
9. The mother figure in the surrealist novel Anna Watz
10. British surrealism at war Jeannette Baxter
11. Surrealist narratives of trauma Patricia Allmer
Part III. Science, Alchemy, Nature: 12. Surrealism and the science fiction novel Gavin Parkinson
13. Pataphysics Donna Roberts
14. Alchemical narratives Victoria Ferentinou
15. Animals and ecology in the surrealist novel Kristoffer Noheden
Part IV. Transnational Surrealism: 16. Nature and surrealism in the Latin American novel of the tropics María Clara Bernal
17. Surrealism, existentialism, and fictions of blackness Jonathan P. Eburne
18. Social critique in the Japanese post-war surrealist novel Felicity Gee
19. The world of the surrealist novel Delia Ungureanu
20. Feminist-Surrealism in the contemporary novel Catriona McAra
Afterword. Novels eclipsed by the sun of poetry? Jacqueline Chénieux-Gendron.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA]