Twenty First Century Perspectives Hari Kunzru

This is the first edited collection on Hari Kunzru. With new individual essays on each of Kunzru’s novels as well as his short fiction and creative non-fiction, the book situates his writing within current debates on contemporary literature, and in relation to key historical events such as Brexit, the election of Trump, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Hari Kunzru: Critical Perspectives brings together established and emerging critics of contemporary literature to offer the first collection of essays on contemporary author Hari Kunzru. Tracing the beginning of Kunzru’s career to the period of ‘Asian cool’, the book examines why it is that Kunzru has maintained his success and established himself as one of the most important voices in contemporary fiction today. Kunzru, we argue, is a literary shape-shifter whose own expressed interest in performativity has allowed him to reshape his own writing career, creating stylistically diverse and global fictions which make his work essential to understanding the nature of contemporary writing today. The book opens with an extensive critical introduction which examines Kunzru’s work as a whole in the context of global identities, and then offers individual essays on each of Kunzru’s novels, his short story collection, and his experimental creative non-fiction. These essays extend existing criticism via engagement with the most up-to-date critical frameworks, as well as examining how Kunzru’s writing engages with key political and historical ruptures such as Brexit, the covid-19 pandemic, and the election of Donald Trump. As a result of its scope, the book will be the first go-to collection for readers interested to know more about Kunzru’s work, but also for a wider range of readers engaged with questions regarding current trends in contemporary literature. The book contains new readings of literary texts of interest to contemporary literature specialists and postgraduate readers, but in a format (one essay per text) accessible to general readers, undergraduate, and A-Level students. This book is the first edited collection to focus on the work of contemporary author Hari Kunzru. It contains major new essays on each of his novels – The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, White Tears and Red Pill – as well as his short fiction and non-fiction writings. The collection situates Kunzru’s work within current debates regarding postmodernism, postcolonialism, and post-postmodernism, and examines how Kunzru’s work is central to major thematic concerns of contemporary writing including whiteness, national identity, Britishness, cosmopolitanism, music, space, memory, art practice, trauma, Brexit, immigration, covid-19, and populist politics. The book engages with current debates regarding the politics of publishing of ethnic writers, examining how Kunzru has managed to shape a career in resistance of narrow labelling where many other writers have struggled to achieve long-term recognition.

This book is the first edited collection to focus on the work of contemporary author Hari Kunzru. It contains major new essays on each of his novels – The Impressionist, Transmission, My Revolutions, Gods Without Men, White Tears and Red Pill – as well as his short fiction and non-fiction writings. The collection situates Kunzru’s work within current debates regarding postmodernism, postcolonialism, and post-postmodernism, and examines how Kunzru’s work is central to major thematic concerns of contemporary writing including whiteness, national identity, Britishness, cosmopolitanism, music, space, memory, art practice, trauma, Brexit, immigration, covid-19, and populist politics. The book engages with current debates regarding the politics of publishing of ethnic writers, examining how Kunzru has managed to shape a career in resistance of narrow labelling where many other writers have struggled to achieve long-term recognition.