A Temporary Future: The Fiction of David Mitchell
Author(s): Patrick O'Donnell
Having emerged as one the leading contemporary British writers, David Mitchell is rapidly taking his place amongst British novelists with the gravitas of an Ishiguro or a McEwan.
Written for a wide constituency of readers of contemporary literature, A Temporary Future: The Fiction of David Mitchell explores Mitchell's main concerns-including those of identity, history, language, imperialism, childhood, the environment, and ethnicity-across the six novels published so far, as well as his protean ability to write in multiple and diverse genres. It places Mitchell in the tradition of Murakami, Sebald, and Rushdie-writers whose works explore narrative in an age of globalization and cosmopolitanism.
Patrick O'Donnell traces the through-lines of Mitchell's work from ghostwritten to The Bone Clocks and, with a chapter on each of the six novels, charts the evolution of Mitchell's fictional project.
Review(s):
“O'Donnell is the first to explore the complete works to date of British novelist David Mitchell. From Mitchell's first novel, ghostwritten, to his most recent release, The Bone Clocks (2014), O'Donnell dedicates a chapter to studying each of the author's six novels in detail …. Referencing theorists such as Jacques Derrida and other authors, including Jorge Luis Borges, Vladimir Nabokov, and Haruki Murakami, O'Donnell makes a careful and clear argument for Mitchell's project as well as his place in literature… it will appeal most to literature students, academics, and literary critics.” —Library Journal
ISBN: 9781441171221