Post-Monolingual Anglophone Novels: Writing Beyond English

Engaging with recent research in literary multilingualism studies, the global anglophone and comparative studies, this book theorizes the so-called post-monolingual anglophone novels. Inspired by Yasemin Yildiz’s Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition (2012), post-monolingual anglophone novels are understood as literary texts that activate multi- and translingual strategies to mount a challenge to the ＂monolingual norm＂ and the homogenizing aspirations of English. Post-monolingual anglophone novels employ literary configurations of multi- and translingualism without ignoring the ongoing validity of the monolingual norm in the international book market and the power differentials inherent in English. This corpus of texts is therefore highly self-conscious about the use of language. As post-monolingual novels stage exchange and movement between languages, they also model, in the realm of fiction, new concepts of language. In several case studies of contemporary anglophone post-monolingual novels from different parts of the world, the book demonstrates how the post-monolingual in literature operates within different cultural and political contexts. The readings of Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Yvonne A. Owuor’s The Dragonfly Sea, Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings, J.M. Coetzee’s The Childhood of Jesus and Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous propose theoretically and methodologically innovative ways of engaging with literary multi- and translingualism. While the analyses focus on the post-monolingual poetics, they also direct attention to the novels’ modes of production and circulation in the anglosphere.

Birgit Neumann is a Professor and Chair of English Literature & Anglophone Studies at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf.