Transatlantic Fictions of 9/11 and the War on Terror: Images of Insecurity, Narratives of Captivity

by Susana Araújo

Overview

Extending the study of post-9/11 literature to include transnational perspectives, this book explores the ways in which contemporary writers from Europe as well as the USA have responded to the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the ensuing 'war on terror.' Transatlantic Fictions of 9/11 and the 'War on Terror' demonstrates the ways in which contemporary fiction has wrestled with anxieties about national and international security in the 21st century.

Reading a wide range of novels by such writers as Amy Waldman, Michael Cunningham, Frédéric Beigbeder, Ian McEwan, Joseph O'Neill, Moshin Hamid, José Saramago, Ricardo Menéndez Salmón, J.M. Coetzee and Salman Rushdie, Susana Araújo explores how the rhetoric of the 'war on terror' has shaped recent representations of the city and how “security” discourses circulate transatlantically and transnationally. By focusing not only on 9/11 but also on the way subsequent events such as the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq are represented in fiction, this book demonstrates how notions of “terror” and “insecurity” have been absorbed, reworked or critiqued in fiction. Araújo examines to what extent transatlantic relations have reinforced or challenged new fictions of “white western middle class captivity.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472506047
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	10/22/2015
Series:	New Horizons in Contemporary Writing
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	976 KB

About the Author

Susana Araújo is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Comparative Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Lisbon, Portugal. She is the author of the poetry book, Dívida Soberana (2012) and of numerous articles in recognised journals. She co-edited the books, Trans/American, Trans/oceanic, Trans/lation (2010), Inseguranças no Espaço Urbano (2012) and Fear and Fantasy in a Global World (2015) as well as several special issues in international periodicals.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Fictions of Terror and Plots of Captivity

2. The New “New York Novel”: The Epicenter and its Reverberations

3. Transatlantic Anxieties: Frédéric Beigbeder and Ian McEwan

4. Democratic Vistas: Michael Cunningham and Walt Whitman

5. Cosmopolitan Attempts: Joseph O'Neill and Mohsin Hamid

6. Iberian Responses: José Saramago and Ricardo Menéndez Salmón

7. Beyond the Transatlantic Nexus: Salman Rushdie and J. M. Coetzee

8. Transatlantic Fictions: Security, Captivity, Futurity


Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

Araújo places 9/11 novels in a continuum of European and American captivity narratives born of perceived or actual threats to personal safety, cultural identity, and national security. Especially compelling is her assertion that Western captivity narratives invert the roles of captor and captive by configuring the Western subject as captive to amorphous sources of terror. ... This erudite, accessible study provides a vital perspective on a complex nexus of transnational issues, ideologies, and fictions. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
CHOICE

Araújo's attentiveness to the intertwined relationship between the concepts of 'terror' and 'security' in relation to the generic form of the captivity narrative, combined with her careful consideration of novels normally positioned outside of the canon of 9/11 literature, ensures that Transatlantic Fictions is an important text for those considering the wider issues of citizenship, urban space and visual politics in contemporary fiction.
Literature & History

This is truly an enchanting book. Apart from the strength that Araújo's well-formulated and well-argumented working hypothesis presents, what is, perhaps, most striking in this work is that its writer manages to ... weave a complex nexus of literary mapping where the novels in and outside her corpus consistently interplay in fruitful dialogue ... What is more, her erudite analyses are complemented with theoretical, political and/or historical backgrounds and contexts, which make the book not only a fascinating, but also an informative read.
European Journal of American Studies

From the Publisher