Focusing on a number of experimental novels and short stories produced in the thirties, in the French, Italian, and English literary traditions, Norma Bouchard situates the origins of postmodernism in the works of three important writers. 

Drawing upon the critical categories developed by poststructuralist and continental theorists, she argues that works by Céline, Gadda, and Beckett demonstrate qualities that later came to be associated with postmodernism: a pluralized literary subjectivity, a changed relationship to language, a "decenterment" of narrative representation, and a grotesque and burlesque vision of the world. Works that receive Bouchard’s close and subtle readings include, among others, Céline’s Journey at the End of Night and Death on the Installment Plan, Gadda’s Acquainted with Grief, and Beckett’s Dream of Fair to Middling Women, More Pricks Than Kicks, and Murphy.

Reaching beyond the national literatures represented by the three writers, Bouchard brings together several discourses to establish a broad transnational evolution and genealogy for European art. The book will be a valuable addition to the collection of anyone interested in mapping the cultural context of modernity and its aftermath.

Norma Bouchard, assistant professor of Italian and comparative literature at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, is the editor of The Politics of Culture and the Ambiguities of Interpretation: Umberto Eco’s Alternative and the author of numerous essays and translations.