Description
Twenty-First-Century Southern Writers: New Voices, New Perspectives, an anthology of critical essays, introduces a new group of fiction writers from the American South. These fresh voices, like their twentieth-century predecessors, examine what it means to be a southerner in the modern world.
These writers' works cover wide-ranging subjects and themes: the history of the region, the continued problems of the working-class South, the racial divisions that have continued, the violence of the modern world, and the difficulties of establishing a spiritual identity in a modern context. The approaches and styles vary from writer to writer, with realistic, place-centered description as the foundation of many of their works. They have also created new perspectives regarding point of view, and some have moved toward the inclusion of ""magic realism"" and even science fiction in their work.
The nineteen essays in Twenty-First-Century Southern Writers feature a handful of fiction writers who are already well known, such as National Book Award-winner Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Michael Farris Smith, and Inman Majors. Others deserve greater recognition, and, in many cases, works in this anthology will be the first pieces of analysis dedicated to writers and their work. Twenty-First-Century Southern Writers aims to alert scholars of southern literature, as well as the reading public, to an exciting and varied group of writers, while laying a foundation for future examination of these works.
About the Author
Jean W. Cash is professor emerita of English at James Madison University, where she taught a variety of courses in southern literature for thirty-seven years. She is author of biographies of Flannery O'Connor and Larry Brown and coeditor (with Keith Perry) of two previous collections of essays on Larry Brown and ""Rough South"" literature. She has also published a number of essays on southern writers and given numerous conference presentations.
Richard Gaughran is associate professor of English at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he teaches American Literature and Film Studies. Recent publications include work on the Coen Brothers, an article on contemporary films of the American South, and another on Don DeLillo's The Names.
Book Information
ISBN 9781496833341
Author Jean W. Cash
Format Paperback
Page Count 168
Imprint University Press of Mississippi
Publisher University Press of Mississippi
Weight(grams) 305g