Revolutionary Subjects
A Radical History of the Bildungsroman
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Verso Books
Publishing:11th Aug '26
£19.99
This title is due to be published on 11th August, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A literary history spanning borders and centuries to explore radicalization as portrayed in fiction
Tracing the evolution of socialist world literature from the nineteenth century to the present, Benjamin Kohlmann uncovers the formal repertoires through which a set of political ideals found aesthetic expression. At the heart of this study is the radical bildungsroman, a genre that subverts dominant narratives of individual formation. Broad in scope, Revolutionary Subjects explores the work of Balestrini, Chernyshevsky, Ding Ling, Lessing, Nizan, Sartre, Weiss, Wright, and many others. These novels challenge conventional ideas of selfhood and belonging, presenting new ways to imagine the self in relation to collective struggle and global solidarity.
Seen, for once, from a radically global perspective, as Kohlmann allows us to see it, the bildungsroman reveals a genuinely radical counter-tradition. A source of much-needed cultural sustenance in hard times. -- Bruce Robbins
Everyone in novel studies needs to read this book! Kohlmann uncovers a counter-tradition to the traditional bildungsroman plot-the radical left bildungsroman-which is formally experimental and committed to the collective and transnational work of living and making worlds together. With bravura new readings of a vast range of novelists, from Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Nanni Balestrini to Ding Ling, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and Doris Lessing, this is a magisterial work of criticism. -- Caroline Levine, author of The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis
ISBN: 9781804297278
Dimensions: 234mm x 153mm x 14mm
Weight: 257g
224 pages
Paperback original