In this course we will examine eight important novels by acknowledged masters of twentieth-century fiction. The selections also represent a number of literary trends or movements during the twentieth century (high modernism, self-conscious fiction, magical realism, postcolonial "writing back," and so forth). One critical/research paper is required. There will also be a mid-term test and a second test (covering only the second half of the semester) near the end of the term.
The following reading list contains, in parentheses, the author's country of birth, and in brackets, the date of the novel's first publication.
Marcel Proust (FRANCE), Swann's Way [1913]
Vladimir Nabokov (RUSSIA), Despair [1936]
Vladimir Nabokov (RUSSIA), Lolita [1955]
Juan Rulfo (MEXICO), Pedro Paramo [1955]
Orhan Pamuk (TURKEY), The White Castle [1979]
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (COLOMBIA), Chronicle of a Death Foretold [1981]
Peter Carey (AUSTRALIA), Jack Maggs [1997]
Carlos Ruiz Zafan (SPAIN), The Shadow of the Wind [2001].
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