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The epistolary novel is a work of narrative fiction that consists of documents, most commonly of letters. In this class, we will look at three examples starting with Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, a novel set in the American South, portraying a young black woman living in segregation and poverty, including harsh scenes of violence, which led to the controversial reception of the text. Our second text written by Nathaniel Mackey is from his ongoing narrative project From A Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. This epistolary novel in many volumes (still unfinished) begins with the Bedouin Hornbook published in 1986, which is a series of letters to the Angel of Dust by a jazz musician including excessive reference to music. Our third text, So Long A Letter by the Senegalese author Mariama Bâ, is a letter from a widow to her childhood friend who now lives in the United States. While these three books will be at the center of our discussion, other texts uploaded on StudIP will provide you with literary criticism and context to further think about a very established genre at a time when the letter as a format loses the value it once had. Please purchase and read the following books:
- Alice Walker (1983), The Color Purple (any edition is fine)
- Nathaniel Mackey (1986), Bedouin Hornbook. Published in Nathaniel Mackey, From A Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate (New Directions, 2010)
- Mariama Bâ (1981), So Long A Letter (any edition is fine)
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