THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

OF AMERICAN LITERATURE

Angkal, Rosaiffah K.
LITERARY
EVENTS DURING
THE PERIOD
LITERARY EVENTS:
• Contemporary literature in the postmodern era trends toward disorder and
randomness as common themes.
• It rejects absolute meaning, takes an irreverent and playful stance toward traditional
understandings of reality, and presents fragmented visions of the world. Although
postmodern literature follows no particular style, there are common techniques
lending themselves to realism rather than fantasy, such as the use of unreliable
narrators, irony, black humor, meta-narration, collage, and pastiche.

• Well-known contemporary texts written in this vein include the following:

1. Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
2. The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles
3. Gravity's Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon
4. White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo
5. Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace.
LITERARY EVENTS:
• Jonathan Franzen's first two novels, The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong
Motion were also written in a postmodernist style, but Franzen grew tired of the
form, fearful that postmodernism would render literature irrelevant and
meaningless.
• Responding to David Foster Wallace's call for something different, Franzen's
third novel, The Corrections, marks a metamodernist turn toward social realism
while still being informed by postmodernist concerns. Literary critic Irmtraud
Huber characterizes this pivot away from postmodernism as a mood swing after
the end of the Cold War in 1989, the terrorist attacks of 911, the economic
downturn of 2008, and the impact of climate change on global communities. In
a world seemingly falling apart, deconstruction is no longer appropriate.
LITERARY EVENTS:
• Literary authors began valuing realism over absurdity, sincerity over irony, and
authenticity over artifice in an attempt to bridge the ruptures caused by corrupt
systems rather than merely exposing and ridiculing them. Metamodernist
literature attempts to knit the world back together rather than burn it down. The
new viewpoint is represented in works such as the following.

1. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) by Dave Eggers

2. Remainder (2005) by Tom McCarthy
3. A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) by Jennifer Egan
4. A Tale for the Time Being (2013) by Ruth Ozeki
5. Beautiful World, Where Are You (2021) by Sally Rooney
NOTABLE WRITERS
AND THEIR
NOTABLE WORKS
1. TONI MORRISON
TONI MORRISON, ORIGINAL NAME CHLOE ANTHONY WOFFORD,
(BORN FEBRUARY 18, 1931, LORAIN, OHIO, U.S.—DIED AUGUST 5,
2019, BRONX, NEW YORK), AMERICAN WRITER NOTED FOR HER
EXAMINATION OF BLACK EXPERIENCE (PARTICULARLY BLACK
FEMALE EXPERIENCE) WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY. SHE
RECEIVED THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE IN 1993.

MORRISON GREW UP IN THE AMERICAN MIDWEST IN A FAMILY THAT

POSSESSED AN INTENSE LOVE OF AND APPRECIATION FOR BLACK
CULTURE. STORYTELLING, SONGS, AND FOLKTALES WERE A DEEPLY
FORMATIVE PART OF HER CHILDHOOD. SHE ATTENDED HOWARD
UNIVERSITY (B.A., 1953) AND CORNELL UNIVERSITY (M.A., 1955). AFTER
TEACHING AT TEXAS SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY FOR TWO YEARS, SHE
TAUGHT AT HOWARD FROM 1957 TO 1964. IN 1965 MORRISON BECAME A
FICTION EDITOR AT RANDOM HOUSE, WHERE SHE WORKED FOR A
NUMBER OF YEARS. IN 1984 SHE BEGAN TEACHING WRITING AT THE STATE
UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY, WHICH SHE LEFT IN 1989 TO JOIN
THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; SHE RETIRED IN 2006.
 NOTABLE WORKS

THE BLUEST SULA SONG OF TAR BABY BELOVED (1987)

EYE (1970) SOLOMON (1981)
it examines (among (1977
is told by a male
is based on the true story
is a novel of initiation other issues) the narrator in search of set on a Caribbean of a runaway slave who, at
concerning a victimized
adolescent Black girl who
dynamics of his identity; its island, explores the point of recapture,
is obsessed by white friendship and the publication brought conflicts of race, kills her infant daughter
expectations for in order to spare her a life
standards of beauty and Morrison to national class, and sex. of slavery.
longs to have blue eyes. conformity within the attention.
community.
2. TERRY MCMILLAN

TERRY MCMILLAN, (BORN OCTOBER 18, 1951, PORT HURON,

MICHIGAN, U.S.), AMERICAN NOVELIST WHOSE WORK
OFTEN PORTRAYS FEISTY, INDEPENDENT BLACK WOMEN
AND THEIR ATTEMPTS TO FIND FULFILLING RELATIONSHIPS
WITH BLACK MEN.
 NOTABLE WORKS

MAMA (1987 DISAPPEARING WAITING TO HOW STELLA GOT

HER GROOVE BACK
ACTS (1989) EXHALE (1992) (1996
follows four Black
a Black woman middle about a wealthy Black
manages to raise five concerns two woman of middle age who
class women, each of
children alone after dissimilar people who falls in love with a young
whom is looking for
she forces her drunken begin an intimate cook while vacationing in
the love of a worthy Jamaica.
husband to leave. relationship.
man.
3. ALICE WALKER

ALICE WALKER, IN FULL ALICE MALSENIOR WALKER, (BORN

FEBRUARY 9, 1944, EATONTON, GEORGIA, U.S.), AMERICAN
WRITER WHOSE NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, AND POEMS
ARE NOTED FOR THEIR INSIGHTFUL TREATMENT OF
AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE. HER NOVELS, MOST
NOTABLY THE COLOR PURPLE (1982), FOCUS
PARTICULARLY ON WOMEN.
 NOTABLE WORKS

THE THIRD LIFE OF

GRANGE COPELAND
MERIDIAN THE COLOR
(1970) (1976) PURPLE (1982
An epistolary novel, it
a narrative that spans a novel describing the depicts the growing up
60 years and three and self-realization of an
coming of age of
African American woman
generations, followed several civil rights between 1909 and 1947 in
two years later. workers in the 1960s. a town in Georgia.
4. JAMES BALDWIN

JAMES BALDWIN, IN FULL JAMES ARTHUR BALDWIN, (BORN

AUGUST 2, 1924, NEW YORK, NEW YORK—DIED DECEMBER
1, 1987, SAINT-PAUL, FRANCE), AMERICAN ESSAYIST,
NOVELIST, AND PLAYWRIGHT WHOSE ELOQUENCE AND
PASSION ON THE SUBJECT OF RACE IN AMERICA MADE HIM
AN IMPORTANT VOICE, PARTICULARLY IN THE LATE 1950S
AND EARLY 1960S, IN THE UNITED STATES AND, LATER,
THROUGH MUCH OF WESTERN EUROPE.
 NOTABLE WORKS

GO TELL IT ON THE THE AMEN CORNER NOBODY KNOWS ANOTHER

MOUNTAIN (1953) (PERFORMED IN NEW MY NAME (1961) COUNTRY (1962)
YORK CITY, 1965)

explores Black-white which examines

his semi his play about a relations in the United sexual as well as
autobiographical first woman evangelist States. racial issues.
and finest novel
THANK YOU