The global novel : writing the world in the 21st century / Adam Kirsch.

Includes bibliographical references (page 105).

World literature and its discontents -- The ambassador : Orhan Pamuk's Snow -- Alternate realities : Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 and Roberto Bolano's 2666 -- To America and back : Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah and Mohsin Hamid's The reluctant fundamentalist -- Fearful futures : Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Michel Houellebecq's The possibility of an island -- Starting from home : Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels.

In the Global Novel, acclaimed literary critic Adam Kirsch explores some of the 21st century's best-known writers--including Orhan Pamuk, Haruki Murakami, Roberto Bolaño, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mohsin Hamid, Margaret Atwood, Michel Houellebecq, and Elena Ferrante. They are employing a way of imagining the world that sees different places and peoples as intimately connected. From climate change and sex trafficking to religious fundamentalism and genetic engineering, today's novelists use 21st-century subjects to address the perennial concerns of fiction, like morality, society, and love. The global novel is not the bland, deracinated, commercial product that many critics of world literature have accused it of being, but rather finds a way to renew the writer's ancient privilege of examining what it means to be human. -- Back cover.