Description
Book SynopsisThis book is about contemporary Brazilian fiction from the past two decades and concerned with the possibilities of literary intervention in the reality of the historical moment. Thus, an understanding of the actual role of literature is strategic in the definition of the contemporary, and the book shows an optimism among current writers and artists with respect to the aesthetic, ethical, and political role of literature and art in the twentieth century.
In contemporary Brazilian prose, two simultaneous ambitions are often reconciled. The commitment to individual or social reality is a challenge that is assumed without thereby necessarily accepting and following the molds of the traditional search for national or cultural identities. This foundation is one of the constants of contemporary prose, without thereby eliminating the continuous existence of a formal experimentalism that is the clearest heir of the modernist project.
Trade ReviewThe timely publication of Affect and Realism in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction makes the work of one of Brazil’s foremost literary scholars available to the English-speaking public. Written with clarity, elegance and erudition, this brilliant volume combines theoretical depth with a shrewd assessment of the main trends in contemporary Brazilian fiction. — Luiz Fernando Valente, Professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University
This study represents a tour-de-force of international and national theoretical breadth with critical readings on the capacity of contemporary Brazilian novels (2000–2020) to respond to life as it is experienced within the everyday shadows of the Brazilian gestalt, i.e., within the obscured (socio-politically hidden) recesses of the psychic, the social and the historical. By applying the affective as a culture of trauma connected to the “present” collectivity, a new form of anti-aesthetic realism emerges where private and public, psychic and social, fiction and real coalesce. This “real” focuses upon production (metafiction) over reception to underscore art as its own realm of experience. For readers, students and scholars, Schollhammer’s study constitutes a “must-read” for understanding the unstable and uncertain conditions of Brazil’s current political and historical scenarios. — Nelson H. Vieira, Professor Emeritus, Portuguese & Brazilian Studies, Brown University
Affect and Realism in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction presents for the first time in English the recent critical production of one of the leading scholars of contemporary literature in Brazil. Karl Erik Schollhammer traces a complex panorama of Brazil's twenty-first-century literary scene and brilliantly situates it in the transnational theoretical debate. — Pedro Erber, Associate Professor of Luso-Brazilian Studies, Waseda University, Tokyo
Karl Erik Schollhamer’s new book is a wonderful tour through contemporary Brazilian fiction—insightful, cogent, and revelatory. The range and depth of analysis are truly impressive. — Marshall C. Eakin, Distinguished Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
The first comprehensive study in English to focus on Brazilian fiction of the last twenty years, Affect and Realism offers a timely discussion on the meanings of the contemporary. A must for any student of Brazilian literature as well as those interested in world literature, affect, trauma and memory studies. — César Braga-Pinto, Professor of Brazilian and Comparative Literature, Northwestern University
Table of ContentsPreface; 1. The Contemporary in Current Brazilian Literature; 2. Realisms in Question; 3. A Paper World—Reflections on the Realism of Luiz Ruffato; 4. Brazilian Literature and the Market; 5. The Victorious Return of the Self in Contemporary Writing; 7. The Challenge of the Sensible and the Sublime Revisited; 8. Farewell to the Contemporary!; Bibliography; Index.
