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.

Reception studies is the single largest growth area in Classics and enjoys increasing popularity with students and scholars

AcknowledgementsList of ContributorsIntroduction, Justine McConnell1 From Anthropophagy to Allegory and Back: A Study ofClassical Myth and the Brazilian Novel, Patrice Rankine2 Ibrahim Al-Koni's Lost Oasis as Atlantis and His Demon asTyphon, William M. Hutchins3 Greek Myth and Mythmaking in Witi Ihimaera's The Matriarchand The Dream Swimmer, Simon Perris4 War, Religion and Tragedy: The Revolt of the Muckers inLuiz Antonio de Assis Brasil's Videiras de CristalSofia Frade5 Translating Myths, Translating Fictions, Lorna Hardwick6 Echoes of Ancient Greek Myths in Murakami Haruki'snovels and in Other Works of Contemporary JapaneseLiterature, Giorgio Amitrano7 'It's All in the Game': Greek Myth and The Wire, Adam Ganz8 Writing a New Irish Odyssey: Theresa Kishkan's A Man ina Distant Field, Fiona Macintosh9 The Minotaur on the Russian Internet: Viktor Pelevin'sHelmet of Horror, Anna Ljunggren10 Diagnosis: Overdose - Status: Critical. Odysseys inBernhard Schlink's Die Heimkehr, Sebastian Matzner11 Narcissus and the Furies: Myth and Docufiction inJonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones, Edith Hall12 Philhellenic Imperialism and the Invention of the ClassicalPast: Twenty-first Century Re-imaginingsof Odysseus in the Greek War for Independence, Efrossini Spentzou13 The 'Poem of Force' in Australia: David Malouf, Ransom and ChloeHooper, The Tall Man, Margaret Reynolds14 Young Female Heroes from Sophocles to the Twenty-FirstCentury, Helen Eastman15 Generation Telemachus: Dinaw Mengestu's How to Readthe Air, Justine McConnell