Writing the 9/11 Decade
Reportage and the Evolution of the Novel
by Charlie Lee-Potter
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Pub Date Nov 03 2016 | Archive Date Mar 20 2017
Description
Writing the 9/11 Decade investigates the relation of the novel to reportage, and the role of both in shaping culture, by looking at novelists’ journalistic responses to the September 11 attacks.
Journalist and academic Charlie Lee-Potter argues that novelists were entrapped by the expectation that they would provide an immediate non-fiction response to 9/11. Beginning with an examination of the sometimes mawkish writing that emerged in the days after the attacks, Writing the 9/11 Decade traces the evolution of literary journalism – in writers such as Ian McEwan, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Mohsin Hamid and Nadeem Aslam – into new methods of subsuming the disaster, while attempting to stand apart from it. It includes interviews with novelists such as Richard Ford, Amy Waldman and Kamila Shamsie, as well as the only longform interview granted by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is himself a 9/11 survivor.
In assessing the novel’s capacity to respond to and contain an unimagined traumatic event, Writing the 9/11 Decade stands as a contemporary history of the form.
Journalist and academic Charlie Lee-Potter argues that novelists were entrapped by the expectation that they would provide an immediate non-fiction response to 9/11. Beginning with an examination of the sometimes mawkish writing that emerged in the days after the attacks, Writing the 9/11 Decade traces the evolution of literary journalism – in writers such as Ian McEwan, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Mohsin Hamid and Nadeem Aslam – into new methods of subsuming the disaster, while attempting to stand apart from it. It includes interviews with novelists such as Richard Ford, Amy Waldman and Kamila Shamsie, as well as the only longform interview granted by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is himself a 9/11 survivor.
In assessing the novel’s capacity to respond to and contain an unimagined traumatic event, Writing the 9/11 Decade stands as a contemporary history of the form.
Advance Praise
“A brilliant and original post-mortem on the literary response to 9/11. Charlie Lee-Potter's searching examination of some of the key novels that were written in the aftermath of the catastrophe sheds a sometimes uncomfortable light on contemporary fiction and its uneasy relationship with journalism and the wider culture.” – Mark Thompson, President and Chief Executive Officer, The New York Times Company, USA
“This is a scholarly and wise account of how writers came to terms with the unspeakable horrors of 9/11. Charlie Lee-Potter's experience in journalism, and her analysis of how authors of fiction responded to the catastrophe in New York, combine into a compelling account of how we tell a story that has changed the age in which we live.” – Roger Mosey, former Head of BBC Television News and Master of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, UK
“If journalism offers the first, flawed, draft of history, fiction has time and space for a richer, more personal, response. Charlie Lee-Potter invites us to reassess the meaning of 9/11 and, through fiction, the shadow it continues to cast across our lives.” – Richard Sambrook, former Director of BBC News and Professor of Journalism, Cardiff University, UK
“This is a scholarly and wise account of how writers came to terms with the unspeakable horrors of 9/11. Charlie Lee-Potter's experience in journalism, and her analysis of how authors of fiction responded to the catastrophe in New York, combine into a compelling account of how we tell a story that has changed the age in which we live.” – Roger Mosey, former Head of BBC Television News and Master of Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, UK
“If journalism offers the first, flawed, draft of history, fiction has time and space for a richer, more personal, response. Charlie Lee-Potter invites us to reassess the meaning of 9/11 and, through fiction, the shadow it continues to cast across our lives.” – Richard Sambrook, former Director of BBC News and Professor of Journalism, Cardiff University, UK
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781501313202 |
| PRICE | $29.95 (USD) |
