The Avant-Postman

A new look at the development of innovative postwar writing in France, Britain, and the United States. The Avant-Postman explores a broad range of innovative postwar writing from France, Britain, and the United States. Taking James Joyces Ulysses and Finnegans Wake as a joint starting point, David Vichnar draws genealogical lines from there through the work of more than fifty writers up to very recent years, including William Burroughs, B. S. Johnson, Ian Sinclair, Kathy Acker, Alan Moore, David Foster Wallace, and many others. Centering the exploration around five strategies employed by Joycenarrative parallax, stylistic metempsychosis, concrete writing, forgery, and neologizing the logosthe book reveals the striking continuities and developments from Joyces day to our own.