The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honour, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of the elite of a very large social structure, such as an empire or nation state. By extension, it may refer to a decline in art, literature, science, technology, and work ethics, or to self-indulgent behavior.
Zoran Živković is a Serbian writer, university professor, essayist, researcher, publisher and translator. Žiković's works have been translated to 20 languages and he was awarded World Fantasy Award.
Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and themes such as racialism and colonialism. A range of literary theory has evolved around the subject. It addresses the role of literature in perpetuating and challenging what postcolonial critic Edward Said refers to as cultural imperialism.
Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction, serious fiction, high literature, artistic literature, and sometimes just literature are labels that, in the book trade, refer to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre ; or, otherwise, refer to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art.
Robert Graham Irwin is a British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature.
Invasion literature is a literary genre that was popular in the period between 1871 and the First World War (1914–1918). The invasion novel first was recognized as a literary genre in the UK, with the novella The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer (1871), an account of a German invasion of England, which, in the Western world, aroused the national imaginations and anxieties about hypothetical invasions by foreign powers; by 1914 the genre of invasion literature comprised more than 400 novels and stories.
Dedalus Books is an independent publishing company based in Cambridgeshire, England. Publisher Eric Lane has said, "We like the bizarre, the grotesque, the surreal and the clever, preferably in the same book. We call this kind of book, distorted reality. For instance David Madsen’s Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf, Sylvie Germain’s The Book of Night and Vladimir Sharov’s Before and During. Three perfect examples of what we are looking for." Prize-winning Dedalus writers have included novelist Andrew Crumey and translator Margaret Jull Costa.
Andrew Crumey is a novelist and former literary editor of the Edinburgh newspaper Scotland on Sunday. His works of literary fiction incorporate elements of speculative fiction, historical fiction, philosophical fiction and Menippean satire. Brian Stableford has called them "philosophical fantasies". The Spanish newspaper El Mundo called Crumey "one of the most interesting and original European authors of recent years."
Sputnik Caledonia (2008) is a novel by Andrew Crumey, for which he won the Northern Rock Foundation Writer’s Award, the UK's largest literary prize at the time.
Scotland's National Book Awards, formerly known as the Saltire Society Literary Awards, are made annually by the Saltire Society. First awarded in 1937, they are awarded for books by Scottish authors or about Scotland, and are awarded in several categories.
Quantum fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that reflects modern experience of the material world and reality as influenced by quantum theory and new principles in quantum physics. It is characterized by the use of an element in quantum mechanics as a storytelling device. The genre is not necessarily science-themed, and blurs the line separating science fiction and fantasy into a broad scope of mainstream literature that transcends the mechanical model of science and involves the fantasy of human perception or imagination as realistic components affecting the everyday physical world.
The Secret Knowledge (2013) is the seventh novel by Scottish writer Andrew Crumey. It was his first since returning to his original UK publisher Dedalus Books, and was awarded a grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Part of the writing was done while the author was visiting fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study. It was longlisted for the Guardian's "Not the Booker" prize.
Ankhi Mukherjee is an academic specialising in Victorian and Modern English literature, critical theory and postcolonial and world literature. In 2015, she was appointed a Professor of English and World Literatures by the University of Oxford.
Utopia Avenue is a 2020 novel by David Mitchell. It is his eighth published novel, and his first since Slade House (2015). It was published by Sceptre on 14 July 2020. The novel tells the story of the fictional 1960s British psychedelic rock band Utopia Avenue.
Dina Salústio is a novelist from Cabo Verde, who is the first woman from the country to publish a novel, and the first writer from the country to have a novel translated to English.
The Great Chain of Unbeing is the eighth fiction book by Andrew Crumey, published by Dedalus Books in 2018. It was shortlisted for Scotland's National Book Awards and nominated for the British Science Fiction Awards. The title alludes to the great chain of being and the book consists of stories that range widely in theme and style but are subtly linked. The book has been variously interpreted as a short story collection or novel.
D'Alembert's Principle is a novel by Andrew Crumey, and the second in a sequence of three set wholly or partly in the eighteenth century. It is in three sections, subtitled "Memory, Reason and Imagination". The U.S. edition was subtitled "A novel in three panels". It has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Italian, Turkish and Romanian. It prompted El Mundo (Spain) to say "Crumey is one of the most interesting and original European authors of recent years."
Mr Mee is a novel by Andrew Crumey, his third set wholly or partly in the eighteenth century. It has three alternating story-lines: one featuring a pair of 18th-century French copyists, and two with modern protagonists - elderly Scottish book collector Mr Mee and university lecturer Dr Petrie. The lecturer's strand is serious in tone. Dissatisfied with his marriage and suffering ill health, he muses on French literature and becomes infatuated with a student. The other two strands are comic. The copyists become guardians of an esoteric encyclopaedia, and Mr Mee wishes to find it. He turns to the World Wide Web and discovers pornography and drugs, with farcical consequences.
Beethoven's Assassins is a novel by Andrew Crumey, nominated by publisher Dedalus Books for the 2023 Booker Prize. It imagines Beethoven being commissioned by a masonic lodge to write an opera about the Order of Assassins, called "The Assassins, or Everything is Allowed". The opera's subtitle comes from "Nothing is true and everything is allowed", which was the Assassins' secret doctrine according to Beethoven's acquaintance Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall.
