Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989

Description

Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989 explores the diverse ways that contemporary world fiction has engaged with ancient Greek myth. Whether as a framing device, or a filter, or via resonances and parallels, Greek myth has proven fruitful for many writers of fiction since the end of the Cold War. This volume examines the varied ways that writers from around the world have turned to classical antiquity to articulate their own contemporary concerns. Featuring contributions by an international group of scholars from a number of disciplines, the volume offers a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approach to contemporary literature from around the world. Analysing a range of significant authors and works, not usually brought together in one place, the book introduces readers to some less-familiar fiction, while demonstrating the central place that classical literature can claim in the global literary curriculum of the third millennium. The modern fiction covered is as varied as the acclaimed North American television series The Wire, contemporary Arab fiction, the Japanese novels of Haruki Murakami and the works of New Zealand's foremost Maori writer, Witi Ihimaera.

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at King's College London, and Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama in Oxford, UK. She has published more than twenty books on ancient Greek culture and its reception including The Return of Ulysses (2008), Greek Tragedy(2010), Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris (2013) and Introducing the Ancient Greeks (2015). Justine McConnell is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of Black Odysseys: The Homeric Odyssey in the African Diaspora since 1939 (2013), and co-editor of Ancient Slavery and Abolition: from Hobbes to Hollywood (2011) and The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas (2015).

This is an enjoyable, scholarly and illuminating collection of essays that highlights the continuing significance of ancient Greek texts for writers across the world today. I found it a horizon-expanding reading experience. -- Susan Bassnett, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Glasgow, UK This volume of exciting analyses of fiction published after 1989 in all corners of the world is a reminder that if classical literature comes from the past it definitely belongs to the present. Any reader of this book will have a hard time believing that modern culture can be understood without constant use of this stock of stories. Through centuries the ancient texts, plots and characters have penetrated our ways of seeing the world. This volume is a living proof that today's literature, film and media products constantly engage in a surprising and not always respectful dialogue with Homer, Virgil, Euripides and lot of others long dead and gone. They are messengers from a time before national literatures and national cultures crossing over to a global world breaking away from national boundaries. This lively, learned and engaging book offers a rich resource for students, teachers and everybody who enjoys contemporary fiction. -- Svend Erik Larsen, Professor of Comparative Literature, Aarhus University, Denmark, Vice-President of the Academia Europaea, co-editor of Orbis Litterarum With its global reach and focus on recent fiction, this collection takes the study of classical reception into important new territory. The editors have assembled a diverse group of contributors to show that Greek myth remains a vital resource for story-tellers in a world of political upheavals and redrawn cultural maps. -- Sheila Murnaghan, Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Professor of Greek, University of Pennsylvania, USA