A new book on Kharms and the absurd in literature

[A.Smith]

Dear colleagues,

Just to let you know that  the new book on Daniil Kharms and the absurd in
literature was published a few days ago. It might be of interest to those of
you who teach comparative literature:

Neil Cornwell, The absurd in literature, Manchester UP, August 2006, ISBN 0
7190 7410 X (paperback), 0 7190 7409 6 (hardback)


Neil Cornwell¹s study, while endeavouring to present a historical survey of
absurdist literature and its forbears, does not aspire to being an
exhaustive history of absurdism. Rather, it pauses on certain historical
moments, artistic movements, literary figures and selected works, before
moving on to discuss four key writers: Daniil Kharms, Franz Kafka, Samuel
Beckett and Flann O¹Brien.

The absurd in literature will be of compelling interest to a considerable
range of students of comparative, European (including Russian and Central
European) and English literatures (British Isles and American) ­ as well as
those more concerned with theatre studies, the avant-garde and the history
of ideas (including humour theory).

Neil Cornwell is Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at the
University of Bristol

Contents
PART 1: Introductory
1. The theoretical absurd: an Introduction
2. Antecedents to the absurd
3. The twentieth century: towards the absurd
4. Around the absurd I: twentieth-century absurdist practice
5. Around the absurd II: The Theatre of the Absurd
PART 3: Special authors
6. Daniil Kharms as minimalist-absurdist
7. Franz Kafka: otherness in the labyrinth of absurdity
8. Samuel Beckett¹s Vessels, Voices and Shades of the Absurd
9. Flann O¹Brien and the purloined Absurd
IN CONCLUSION
10. Beyond the absurd?
Conclusion

234x156mm 352pp

HB 0-7190-7409-6
PB 0-7190-7410-X
Price: £17.99 paperback or £55.00 hardback

Best,
AS

Alexandra Smith  (PhD, University of London)

Lecturer in Russian
Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies
University of Sheffield

Alexandra.Smith at sheffield.ac.uk

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------