The Global Novel and Capitalism in Crisis Contemporary Literary Narratives

This book examines how contemporary global novels by Salman Rushdie, David Mitchell, Rana Dasgupta and Rachel Kushner have evolved new aesthetics to represent global economic and ecological crises. Paying close attention to the interrelations between postcolonial, world, and global literatures, this book argues that postcolonial literary studies cannot account for global crises that exceed the national and anti-colonial. Advocating an interdisciplinary framework informed by a synthesis of materialist literary theory with world-systems theory, combining Fredric Jameson and Georg Lukács with Giovanni Arrighi and Jason W. Moore, this book examines how global literatures metabolise not only socioeconomic conditions, but also transformations in the world-ecology, and emergent developmental and epochal crises of capitalism.

1. Chapter 1 Introduction: Global, Postcolonial, and World Literatures.- 2. Chapter 2 Global Literature, Realism, and the World-System in Crisis.- 3. Chapter 3 ‘Worlds in Collision’: Salman Rushdie, Globalisation, and Postcoloniality-in-Crisis.- 4. Chapter 4 ‘Prophet Malthus Surveyed a Dustbowl’: David Mitchell, Neo-Malthusianism and the World-Ecology in Crisis.- 5. Chapter 5 Aesthetic Attitudes to Globalisation: Rana Dasgupta, Capitalism-in-Crisis, and Narrating the World.- 6. Chapter 6 ‘FAC UT ARDEAT’: Rachel Kushner, the World-Historical Novel, and Energetic Materialism.- 7. Chapter 7 Conclusion: Towards A Literary Internationale.

Dr Treasa De Loughry is Lecturer/ Assistant Professor and Ad Astra Fellow in World Literature in the School of English, Drama and Film at University College Dublin, Ireland.