Business is woven into the very fabric of American life, yet rarely surfaces in the nation's literary history. Even in novels about business, it proves an elusive motif that fails to mirror actual business organizations. This book argues that literary representations of business remain ineffable because business serves potential aesthetic functions, subtly yet meaningfully impacting readers. Exploring the complex representation of business in realist, naturalist and modernist works, Erhan Simsek reveals these functions by analyzing how the motif intertwines with social developments, literary movements and author biographies. He thus illuminates the motif itself while highlighting the utility of a focus on the changing functions of literature.

Hersteller:
transcript Verlag
Gero Wierichs
live@transcript-verlag.de
Hermannstraße 26
DE 33602 Bielefeld

Erhan Simsek (Dr.) teaches at Bielefeld University. His research interests include American literature, literary theory, and composition studies.

Besprochen in:Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 259/1 (2022), Kurt Müller

»The study presents a welcome contribution to the field and incidentally demonstrates why it is precisely literary scholars that should be writing about business.«