Chiefly English, with some contributions in French.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

AUTHORS IN THIS VOLUME / Liesbeth Korthals Altes and Manet van Montfrans -- INTRODUCTION: THE NEW GEORGICS: RURAL AND REGIONAL MOTIFS IN THE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN NOVEL / Liesbeth Korthals Altes and Manet van Montfrans -- NATURE, HISTORY AND MODERNITY / Joep Leerssen -- HUGO CLAUS’S RURAL RUMOURS / Dirk de Geest -- ‘FROM NATURAL TO UNNATURAL’: THE IMAGE OF AUSTRIA AS ‘HEILE WELT’ AND ITS CONSEQUENCES / Andrea Kunne -- LE ‘THULSERN’ DE GERHARD KÖPF: SI PRÈS, SI LOIN / Hans Hartje -- VOICE, TEXT AND LITERACY IN THE ENGLISH GEORGIC OF ADAM THORPE’S ULVERTON: A POSTMODERN INTERROGATION OF THE COUNTRY-CITY DEBATE / Richard Todd -- RESHAPING MEMORY: BUFALINO, CONSOLO AND THE SICILIAN TRADITION / Francesca Neri and Giampiero Segneri -- LE ROMAN RURAL PORTUGAIS DANS L’ACTUALITÉ / Fernando Venâncio -- THE RUSSIAN VILLAGE WRITERS / Arthur Langeveld -- PIERRE BERGOUNIOUX: UN LIMOUSIN ENTRE DESCARTES ET BOURDIEU / Liesbeth Korthals Altes and Manet van Montfrans -- LE PLATEAU DES MILLE MYSTÈRES: RÉEL ET FANTASTIQUE CHEZ RICHARD MILLET / Sjef Houppermans -- THE FRAMING OF THE WORLD IN THE NOVELS OF THE SWISS AUTHOR MARGRIT SCHRIBER / Hans Ester -- SERGIO MALDINI AND THE NORTH-EAST OF ITALY / Elisabeth Koenraads -- THE METAPHORICAL LANDSCAPE OF THE SPANISH AUTHOR JULIO LLAMAZARES / Dorothée te Riele -- FICTION AND REALITY IN SMILLA’S SENSE OF SNOW / Annelies van Hees -- LOSS IN MALDEGEM AND JORWERD COUNTRY ‘SITES’ IN CONTEMPORARY DUTCH/FLEMISH LITERATURE / Ton Brouwers.

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The human condition in rural, provincial locations is once again gaining status as a subject of European ‘high fiction’, after several decades in which it was dismissed on aesthetic and ideological grounds. This volume is one of the first attempts to investigate perspectives on local cultures, values and languages both systematically and in a European context. It does so by examining the works of a variety of authors, including Hugo Claus, Llamazares, Bergounioux and Millet, Buffalino and Consolo, and also several Soviet authors, who paint a grim picture of a collectivized – and thus ossified – rurality. How do these themes relate to the ongoing trend of globalization? How do these works, which are often experimental, connect – in their form, topics, language and ideological subtext – to the traditional rural or regional genres? Far from naively celebrating a lost Eden, most of these ‘new Georgics’ reflect critically on the tensions in contemporary, peripheral, rural or regional cultures, to the point of parodying the traditional topoi and genres. This book is of interest to those wishing to reflect on the dynamics and conflicts in contemporary European rural culture.