Atrocity and Amnesia The Political Novel since 1945 [Paperback]

Working deliberately against the grain of assumptions dominant in the contemporary literary academy, Boyers examines novels by G?nter Grass, Gabriel Garcia M?rquez, Milan Kundera and others, arguing that it is necessary to speak of character, ethics, and philosophic purpose if one is to understand these works. A penetrating study,Atrocity and Amnesiailluminates some of the major fiction of our time and makes an important contribution to contemporary political thought.

A rara avis in modern literary academia....It speaks well for both Boyers' critical intelligence and his integrity that he never uses simplistic labels...as a basis for his aesthetic judgment. He evaluates not the writer's views, but the literary use he makes of them....The strength of his book lies in his approach to each writer, regardless of his or her particular views. --Stanislaw Baranczak,The New Republic

An important book...Even his detractors will not read such disparate novels as Greene'sThe Quiet Americanor Solzhenitsyn'sThe First Circlein quite the same way again. This, as much as anything else, is what 'critical authority' finally means. --The Georgia Review

Boyers has written a compelling study, one that convincingly demonstrates that the political novel is a category that is not only worth our consideration but is essential to any intelligent, imaginative reflection on politics in the modern world. --Southern Humanities Review

Boyers lays hold on political narrative and makes brilliant sense of writers as different as Nadine Gordimer, V.S. Naipaul, and Milan Kundera. The result is elegant...[and] indispensable to further thinking about politics and literature. --Terrence Des Pres

Stimulating reading for those interested in the ways in which a writer may purposely encapsulate or intermesh ideological positions within the imaginative framework of a novel. --Centennial Reviewl#É