Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel

Edwin Frank's "Stranger than Fiction" is a legendary editors survey of the key works that defined the twentieth-century novel, illuminating the twitchy, self-undermining narrator of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway's reinvention of the American sentence, Colette and André Gide's subversions of traditional gender roles, and the monumental ambitions of works such as Mrs Dalloway, The Magic Mountain and The Man Without Qualities. It also includes Japan's Natsume Soseki and Nigeria's Chinua Achebe, as well as Vasily Grossman, Hans Erich Nossack and Elsa Morante. Frank makes sense of the century by mixing biographical portraiture, cultural history and close encounters with great works of art, renewing our appreciation of the paradigmatic art form of our times.

Format: Hardback
Length: 480 pages
Publication date: 21 November 2024
Publisher: Vintage Publishing

A masterclass in masterpieces SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Epic, personal, smart, wise, witty JOSHUA COHEN Sizzles with passion TOM McCARTHY For more than two decades, Edwin Frank has introduced readers to forgotten or overlooked texts as director of the acclaimed publisher New York Review Books. In Stranger than Fiction, he offers a legendary editor's survey of the key works that defined the twentieth-century novel. Starting with Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Frank shows how its twitchy, self-undermining narrator established a voice that would echo through the coming century. He illuminates Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway's reinvention of the American sentence; Colette and André Gide's subversions of traditional gender roles; and the monumental ambitions of works such as Mrs Dalloway, The Magic Mountain, and The Man Without Qualities to encompass their times. Also included are Japan's Natsume Soseki and Nigeria's Chinua Achebe, as well as Vasily Grossman, Hans Erich Nossack, and Elsa Morante. Later chapters range from Ralph Ellison and Marguerite Yourcenar to Gabriel García Márquez and WG Sebald. Frank makes sense of the century by mixing biographical portraiture, cultural history, and close encounters with great works of art. In so doing, he renews our appreciation of the paradigmatic art form of our times.

Weight: 706g
Dimension: 242 x 162 x 40 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781911717201