In an age of world citizenship, literary scholarship is focusing increasingly on texts which communicate effectively over cultural lines. Advocating a planetary approach to contemporary literature, this critical text examines eight novels from eight cultures. The writers discussed are Julian Barnes, Magda Szabo, Abraham B. Yehoshua, Ian McEwan, W.G. Sebald, Murakami Haruki, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Azar Nafisi. Focusing on the authors' encouragement to meditate on life's most pressing issues, the essays here invite us to reevaluate postmodernism as a current category.

Table of ContentsPreface and AcknowledgmentsIntroductionFor a Planetary CultureTranscultural NarrativesThrough the Green LineAround PostmodernismAfter 9/11Beyond PostmodernismThe Dialectics Between Words and RealityNarratives of ResponsibilityMorals as Transgression1.¿Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot (1984)Relics of the PastRethinking HistoryThe Language of ParrotsAvatars of Truth2.¿Magda Szabó, The Door (1987)Behind the DoorEmotions, Thought and EthicsAn Epic of EmotionsAgainst OrthodoxyFrom Ethics to AestheticsThe Tragedy of Betrayal3.¿Abraham B. Yehoshua, Mr. Mani (1990)Back to the BibleThe Shadow of the AkedahLooking for a FatherEscaping from HistoryThe Other Within4.¿Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001)The Dangers of the ImaginationEroticism and ForgeryNight into NightmareWar HellsCriminal and MournerA Book on Books5.¿W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz (2001)Narratives of ExileArchitectures of SufferingMirroring LivesGhosts of MemoryOn the Verge of the Abyss6.¿Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore (2002)Rewriting the Enigma of OedipusLife on the ShoreThe Possible Story of Miss SaekiNakata versus Johnnie WalkerInto the Labyrinth7.¿Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (2002)One Novel, Two NarrativesHeart of DarknessBeyond the TragicBlindness and InsightPostmemory Novels8.¿Azar Näsi, Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)Back to TehranLife in BlackThe Politics and Poetics of IdentityNarratives of the Iranian DiasporaA Heated Critical DebateLanguage and Democracy9.¿ConclusionTraveling with Mr. BeanBearing WitnessInner FrontiersNarratives and RemediationGrasping ComplexityNotesBibliographyIndex