© Columbia University Press
9/11 and the Literature of Terror
August, 2011
Cloth, 224 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-7486-3852-9
Edinburgh University Press
$100.00
Martin Randall analyzes the representation of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in a wide selection of novels, short stories, poems, and plays. He discusses the tropes, narratives, and styles that have emerged as authors, journalists, playwrights, and poets "write on" from the event. Films, documentaries, and television broadcasts are also examined, as well as autobiographical essays, journalistic features, and political polemics. Randall closely reads Frederic Beigbeder, Don DeLillo, Claire Messud, and Jonathan Safran Foer against the debates surrounding representation, narrative, and controversies of history vs. fiction, as well as discussions concerning New York writing and urban fiction. Randall's treatment of literary representation, fictional responses to trauma and historical suffering, and the relationship between visual spectacle and the written word is extremely timely.