Twayne Companion to Contemporary Literature in English: From the Editors of The Hollins Critic, 2 Volume set - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080571703X ISBN 13: 9780805717037

Publisher: Twayne Publishers, 2002

Synopsis

The Twayne Companion to Literature in English is a reference anthology of valuable essays on literary criticism, with a focus on North American, British, and Irish poets and writers of fiction in the last quarter century.

This title offers a unique collection of critical essays on writers of poetry and fiction of the past 25 years. This 2-vol. anthology provides detailed, updated entries on approximately 100 American, Canadian, British and Irish writers.

Twayne Publishers is privileged to collaborate with the editors of The Hollins Critic, the journal based at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, which is internationally famous for its writers-in-residence program. The Hollins Critic, published five times a year, presents the first serious surveys of the whole bodies of contemporary writers work, with complete checklists. Its focus is on the trans-Atlantic tradition, which includes the literature of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland.

Subject entries include, among many others, Maya Angelou, John Ashbery, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Berger, Raymond Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, E. L. Doctorow, Richard Elman, Thomas Flanagan, Mary Gaitskill, Elizabeth Hardwick, Ted Hughes, Robert Hass, Barbara Kingsolver, Alison Lurie, Cormac McCarthy, Czeslaw Milosz, Toni Morrison, Paul Muldoon, Tim OBrien, Michael Ondaatje, Thomas Pynchon, Richard Powers, W.D. Snodgrass, Mark Strand, Lewis

About this title

From Booklist:

Part of the new Twayne Companion to Literature series, this set features 101 select essays reprinted from The Hollins Critic (produced by Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia) during the period between 1975 and 2002. A chronology of that period's important literary publications, awards, and events sets the context for the essays at the beginning of volume 1. Each essay, usually between 5,000 and 6,000 words, surveys a contemporary author's entire body of work and is intended to "do something more than merely offer a review of his (or her) books and something less than deliver a verdict on his (or her) 'place' in literary history." Essays also feature a brief biography accompanied by a line-art portrait of the writer, a bibliography of the author's works, and, where applicable, a career update. The essays, written by literary scholars, were chosen because of the excellence of the writing and a perceived lack of subject coverage elsewhere.

Included authors are mostly novelists or poets, primarily American but also Canadian, English, or Irish. Coeditor Dillard takes pains to discuss the collapse of the traditional literary canon in his introduction, thus banishing all expectation of national figures and trying to exonerate himself from a canon debate. Instead, he offers examples of the current "openness and . . . genuine diversity of style and content far more complex, varied, and interesting than one shaped merely by the demands of political correctness." Indeed, the authors covered have an impressive range of styles: among the included are postmodernists Thomas Pynchon and Paul Auster, science fiction writer Octavia Butler, historical fiction writer Thomas Flanagan, popular novelist Anne Tyler, cutting-edge novelist Richard Powers, and poets Mary Jo Salter and John Ashbery. An index at the back of volume 2 facilitates locating people and titles.

Because the original Hollins Critic essays are indexed only in MLA Bibliography, ABELL, and American Humanities Index, these volumes provide a welcome additional point of access. The authors covered are a nice representation of the "postmodernist chaos" arguably present in contemporary fiction. Recommended for academic libraries. RBB
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Review:

"Part of the new "Twayne Companion to Literature" series, this set features 101 select essays reprinted from "The Hollins Critic" during the period between 1975 and 2002... The authors covered are a nice representation of the 'postmodernist chaos' arguably present in contemporary fiction. Recommended for academic libraries."
-- "Booklist" (April 2003)

About this edition

• Publisher: Twayne Publishers
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 080571703X
• ISBN 13: 9780805717037
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 1000
• Editor: Dillard R. H. W., Cockrell Amanda