The Global Novel: Writing the World in the 21st Century

"Illuminating." --New York Times Book Review

"Award-winning critic Adam Kirsch achieves a fresh take on world literature in this collection of essays about eight global writers who encompass six languages and five continents." --BBC, "Ten Books to Read in April"

"In an era of cheap air travel, digital communications, consumerism, worldwide urbanization, and the dominance of English...readers, editors, and critics found it easy to welcome works by Haruki Murakami or Orhan Pamuk and the snapshots of foreign life they reveal...Kirsch argues in his new book [that] these circumstances have given rise to an entirely new literary category." --Siddhartha Deb, The New Republic

"Timely, direct, and full of good sense, The Global Novel brilliantly discards critical pieties to address numerous arguments for what the twenty-first century novel is becoming." --World Literature Today

"A critical appreciation of 'world literature, ' highlighting works that combine specifics of locality with global reach.... Kirsch is shrewd on what he terms 'a new genre of English-language fiction...call it migrant literature, ' which is less about an immigrant's arrival than a transitional passage, one that reinforces the notion of globalization in novels whose cultural roots are tougher to untangle. An insightful addition to the Columbia Global Reports roster." --Kirkus Reviews

"Kirsch's analysis thoughtfully adds to the existing conversation, making a persuasive case for the global novel." --Library Journal