This is a course on fiction of the last half century or so by winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. We’ll begin by comparing the complete list of laureates with a list of non-winners (often more distinguished figures) and then turn briefly to some critical readings that try to make sense of, and evaluate, these patterns. Who wins, and why? Where do winners come from? What languages do they write in? What are their values? Which literary genres are represented? And so on.

But nearly all of the semester will be devoted to discussion of a few major novels. We’ll consider this fiction partly through the patterns we derive from the critical readings, but mainly by analyzing the relationship between form and ideology — between postmodernism as a narrative category and the outlook, the worldview, we find in our five texts. Do these works — from North and South America, Europe and Asia Minor, and the Far East — have important structural and thematic features in common, or are they united only by the fact that they were written at roughly the same time? What are the implications of either answer? This, then, is also a course in contemporary world literature, an increasingly important field of study that we will examine empirically, from the inside out.

Readings:

Gabriel García-Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Imre Kertész, Fatelessness

Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red

Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out

Toni Morrison, A Mercy

Course Requirements:

a) Attendance and regular participation in discussion

b) 15-18 pages of writing: either three 5-6 page papers, or one 5-6 page paper plus a 10-12 page paper

Intended Audience:

First-year students interested in literature

Class Format:

Discussion