kristjanagunnarswritings
prose
The Postmodern Series
consists of five works of prose narrative which are variously referred to as “postmodern novels” or “fictional memoirs” or just plain “novels” or even “poetic narratives” and “essays.” However, the books themselves bear the label of “novel” and readers are encouraged to trust this label, and not be fooled by the atypical length or narrative voice. It is all right to be baffled, and to enjoy fictional narratives in poetic and unconventional ways. But if you read too literally, you will be misled.
These five books have become Gunnars’ best known works and were all published by Red Deer Press between 1989 and 1998. They form an unconnected “series” because they all participate in a narrative method which is both subjective and objective: the speaker’s voice is intimate, but often the narrative becomes very distanced, referring to other writers, other works, and theoretical or philosophical notations along the way.
This string of fictional-poetic meta-narratives are voiced from one woman’s perspective, beginning with the expressions of the child in The Prowler; to that of the young woman in Zero Hour; to the more mature female voice of The Substance of Forgetting; to the later years of The Rose Garden; and finally to the life-changing moments of the heart of adulthood in Night Train to Nykøbing.
titles
Here is the bibliographic list of the whole series and their dates of publication, the earliest one last:
Night Train to Nykøbing. Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1998.
The Rose Garden: Reading Marcel Proust. Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1996.
The Substance of Forgetting. Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1992.
Zero Hour. Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1991.
The Prowler. Red Deer: Red Deer College Press, 1989.
Zero Hour is published in French translation as:
Degré zéro. (Translation into French of Zero Hour.) Trans. Anne Malena. Montréal: Leméac Éditeurs, 1998.
The Prowler is published in French translation as:
La maraude. (Translation into French of The Prowler.) Trans. Anne Malena. Montréal: Leméac Éditeurs, 1995.Selections from the above books have appeared in various journals and anthologies. These are among our favourite productions:
“From The Substance of Forgetting,” by Kristjana Gunnars. Writing on Air, ed. David Rothenberg and Wandee J. Pryor. A Terra Nova Book. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003 (163-168). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“From 'The Cane Flute',” by Kristjana Gunnars. Writing the Future; Progress and Evolution, ed. David Rothenberg and Wandee J. Pryor. A Terra Nova Book. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2004 (107-115). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Selections from The Prowler, selected and translated into Icelandic by Garðar Baldvinsson in Íslandslag, Íslensk-kanadískar bókmenntir frá 1870 til nútímans, 2006, 321-32.
