Creaturely Forms in Contemporary Literature: Narrating the War Against Animals

We are living through a period of planetary crisis, a time in which the mass production and consumption of some animals is made possible by the mass extinction of many others. What is the role of literature in responding to this war against animals? How might literary criticism read for animals?

In Creaturely Forms in Contemporary Literature, Dominic O'Key develops the bold argument that deep attention to literary form enables us to rethink human-animal relations. Through chapters on W. G. Sebald, J. M. Coetzee and Mahasweta Devi, as well as close readings of works by Arundhati Roy and Richard Powers, O'Key reveals how literary forms can unsettle the fictions of human supremacy and craft alternative, creaturely forms of relation.

An intervention into both the humanism of literary theory and the representational focus of animal studies, this provocative work makes the case for a new formalism in light of our obligation to fellow creatures.

Author: Dominic O'Key
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 07/27/2023
Series: New Horizons in Contemporary Writing
Pages: 216
Weight: 0.67lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.45d
ISBN: 9781350189676