Avishek Parui puts literary and cultural theory firmly and compellingly on the agenda of interdisciplinary memory studies.

Astrid Erll, Goethe University Frankfurt / The Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform

In Avishek Parui’s splendid book, literature plays the role of a double agent: On the one hand, literature lionizes the general values of mainstream culture; but on the other hand, it constantly ironizes the very status quo of culture. The book is a gem, erudite, but also far reaching. It tackles hot issues like colonialism, the current COVID crisis, but also the eternal question: who are we as narrative beings.

Fritz Breithaupt, provost professor, Indiana University Bloomington

Through an examination of the complex interplay of matter, metaphor, and memory in a diverse array of carefully selected case studies, Culture and the Literary provides a wide-ranging and theoretically sophisticated reflection on the ways in which literature navigates dominant cultural codes and narratives, reflecting, consolidating, or subverting them. Drawing on memory studies, material engagement theory, and affect studies, this daring and dazzling book makes a powerful and eloquent case for the value of close reading of literary texts for a deeper understanding of culture.

Stef Craps, Ghent University, co-author of Trauma