3:AM’s Lee Rourke on the return of British avant garde fiction:
Ever wondered what happened to British avant garde fiction? Well, it seems to have found a home in London’s conceptual art world.
Given the homogenised state of modern literary fiction today, it’s hard to believe that an experimental (British) literary avant garde ever existed. Yet, back in the 60s a number of writers - most notably BS Johnson and Ann Quin - almost managed to convince the literary establishment of their day that there was something more to the British novel than we were led to believe.
Looking back at their remarkable work these days, long after their working-class bluntness and radical modernism forced most critics into paroxysms of derision, it’s difficult to imagine it reaching the top of a publisher’s slush pile, let alone making it all the way into print. We’ve known for a long time now that marketing departments don’t want to deal with multifaceted and circuitous fiction - because we rarely see it.
However, a new generation of experimental voices can now be heard, thanks mainly to publishers such as Book Works, a publisher that has embedded itself firmly in London’s art world. Book Works have just published their first two titles, in a series of nine, on its Semina - “where the novel has a nervous breakdown” - imprint. Semina takes its inspiration from a series of loose-leaf magazines issued by California beat artist Wallace Berman in the 1950s and 1960s.
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I’m hoping that such a venture will not send critics and readers alike back into the safe embrace of contemporary literary fiction, and that once again literature can begin to forge ahead into new directions. It’s about time we ignored the grumblings of a past generation of critics (too many to mention here) who tired of our old avant garde’s investigations and embraced, once more, the notion that fiction doesn’t always have to strive to be “literary” to be authentic.
Further: Richard Marshall reviews the Semina title One Break, A Thousand Blows! for 3:AM / Stewart Home, Semina commissioning editor, in conversation with Bridget Penney
First posted: Friday, July 18th, 2008.
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