The Hypercontemporary Novel in Portugal

The first volume of critical essays on the contemporary Portuguese novel in English, this book theorizes the concept of the ‘hypercontemporary’ as a way of reading the novel after its postmodern period.

This inquiry into the notion of the hypercontemporary in its literary and cultural articulations analyzes a varied group of works representative of the most vibrant novels published in Portugal since 2000. The editors’ introductory chapter theorizes the concept of the hypercontemporary as one way of looking at the novel after its postmodern period – especially in its relation to questions of violence, memory and performativity.

These essays show how the Portuguese novel has evolved in the past 25 years, and how, in their diversity, most of these novels exhibit several common traits, including new topics and writing strategies – sometimes developing further entropic lines characteristic of many Postmodern narratives – and themes of violence, rapid transformation, and the many threats to a contemporary world that seems mass-produced due to greater technological advances. Readings also discuss the use of innovative graphic forms available from current print technologies and global networks.

The Hypercontemporary Novel in Portugal provides a necessary understanding of the current literary landscape of Portugal and, in the process, the aesthetics of hyperrealism or post-postmodernism.

Through the discussion of the hyper-contemporary period and its impact on literature, this book discusses the contemporary intermedial novel of the Portuguese-speaking world, its themes and aesthetic specificities, and questions canonical views of literature. The Hypercontemporary Novel in Portugal thus represents a landmark in the reflection on the hyper-contemporary novel written in Portuguese, when treatments of the topic are sparse in Portuguese and non-existent in English. Adriana Martins, Associate Professor of Culture Studies, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal

The Hypercontemporary Novel in Portugal, is an insightful, rich, lucid, thought-provoking, stimulating and a pathbreaking book that explores fictional aesthetics and memory after postmodernism. This is a unique and potentially transformative book that will have wide appeal for scholars and will impact different disciplines. It is a must have book to truly understand the current literary landscape of Portugal. José N. Ornelas, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

Cohesively structured and convincingly argued, The Hypercontemporary Novel in Portugal presents an assembly of individual essays which traverse a wide range of hypercontemporary authors and literary examples, but still work synergistically to demonstrate the evolution of contemporary narrative forms in Portuguese literature, in response to the dynamic historic-social changes of our globalised world. As such, The Hypercontemporary Novel in Portugal is a highly original and much-needed contribution to the evolving landscape of contemporary Portuguese literary criticism and will undoubtedly inspire a new wave of scholarship in the wake of the many questions and considerations that it poses. International Journal of Iberian Studies