Metafiction

Metafiction is one of the most distinctive features of postwar fiction, appearing in the work of novelists as varied as Eco, Borges, Martin Amis and Julian Barnes. Its emphasis is on the playing with styles and forms, through an awareness of the elusiveness of meaning and the limitations of the realist form. Dr Currie's volume examines both the cause and effect of metafiction, with practical illustrations from the work of such writers as Derrida and Foucault. A final section then provides the view of metafiction as seen by metafictional writers themselves.