Contemporary Fiction: Short Novels for a Long Hot Summer
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Level: Undergraduate
Division: The New School for Public Engagement
School: School of Undergraduate Studies
Department: Humanities
Course Number: NLIT 2520
Course Format: Lecture
Location: NYC campus
Permission Required: No
Description:
We discuss recent important short novels and novellas by emerging novelists as well as established authors considered central to contemporary literature's cultural conversation. With settings that range from Chile to Australia, the United States, Estonia, England, and Saudi Arabia, these novels have been chosen for their diverse and inventive narrative strategies, their psychological acuity, and their insights into both contemporary life and the human condition. Readings include Roberto Bolaño, Distant Star; Denis Johnson, Train Dreams; E.L. Doctorow, Homer and Langley; Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic; Tim Winton, Breath; Helen Schulman, This Beautiful Life; Dave Eggers, Hologram for the King; Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones; Don DeLillo, Falling Man; Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending; Edward St. Aubyn, At Last; Sophie Oksanen, Purge; Niccolo Ammaniti, Me and You.
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