Global Failure and World Literature : : Reading the Contemporary Quest Novel / / Karen Borg Cardona.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2023 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Borg Cardona, Karen,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2023]; ©2023
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: Culture & Conflict , 23
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VII, 167 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Acknowledgements --; Contents --; 1 Introduction: Conceptualisations of Failure and the Quest Narrative --; 2 American Exceptionalism, American Anxiety: The End of the World in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road --; 3 Failing to Listen, Failing to Speak: Narrating Women’s Experience in Julia Kristeva’s Possessions --; 4 Human Rights and Eurocentric Universalism: Questioning Truth and Justice in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost --; 5 Dystopia, Erasure, and Waiting: Navigating Post-Revolutionary Egypt in Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue --; 6 Conclusion: Reconceptualising Failure --; Works Cited --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9783111133997; 9783111175782; 9783111319292; 9783111318912; 9783111319094; 9783111318127
• ISSN: 2194-7104
• DOI: 10.1515/9783111133997
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Karen Borg Cardona.

While the contemporary era has witnessed a series of spectacular failures with severe and widespread global consequences, failure is still broadly understood on an individual level, while its broader causes and consequences receive little attention. This book reconceptualises failure as a method for characterising and critiquing systems and institutions on both a global and a local level. It defines global failure as comprising global inequality, economic crisis, and ecological disaster, and as a condition which informs and is informed by localised failure. It examines the negotiation between global and local failure in narratives of failed quests by four contemporary authors: Cormac McCarthy, Julia Kristeva, Michael Ondaatje, and Basma Abdel Aziz. As a genre, the quest narrative is associated with the idea of hard-won success. The failed quest narrative, or the narrative of the failed quest, is therefore the ideal vehicle through which to examine the socio-political and institutional conditions of failure. Primarily a contribution to the field of world literature, this book is also relevant to those with an interest in the contemporary novel, failure studies, and the quest narrative.