Ethical Narratives

The authors analyze selected English post-postmodern novels by Zadie Smith, Arundhati Roy and Jonathan Franzen to demonstrate that a paradigm shift has occurred in literature at the turn of the millennium, both in the re-establishment of authorial authority and ethical agency. The twenty-first-century fiction rejects the relativism and irony of the postmodern sensibility and relies on ethical pragmatism and narrative sincerity. The post-postmodern novelists, chosen in this research, assert that literature is a redemptive and humanizing practice, which has the potential to express the significance of communal unity and provide the occasion for contact between individuals. To achieve this goal, these authors apply various narrative strategies to present truthful depictions of the contemporary world and the ethical dilemmas human beings confront in the aftermath of the eleventh of September.