The Nouveau Roman was a French Modernist literary movement of the 1950s whose antecedents were Joyce, Beckett and Proust. A common theme among the works produced by those writers grouped as nouveax romanistes were "discontinuity, rupture, difference and revolution"¹, and they defined themselves against "a dominant culture in thrall to a staid and anachronistic concept … Continue reading The “Nouveau Roman”: where to start?
The Man Booker Prize is 50 years old in 2019. In that time, only one Scottish author has won. In 1994, in the prize's 25th anniversary year James Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late became the most controversial - and least likely - victor. The Booker Prize (as it was then called) is sometimes … Continue reading James Kelman
In this final part of my study of Robbe-Grillet's early fiction, with today being what would have been his 95th birthday, I'll look at the novel which, for me, sees him reach the high-point of the nouveau-roman; and a series of experimental (in the true sense of the word) short fictions. By the time of … Continue reading Alain Robbe-Grillet: early fiction (part 3)
From the briefest of biographical details, John Calder would seem an unlikely revolutionary. Scion of a brewing dynasty, he once stood for election as the Liberal candidate for his home seat of Kinross. But at 90 this Scottish-Canadian publisher is still active, and still fighting against the forces of cultural reaction. Few publishers can claim … Continue reading Calder Books – a celebration
Into the Gyre 