BOOK NEWS: Trans narrators in contemporary fiction

Trans Narrators: First-Person Form and the Gendered Body in Contemporary Literature

By Chiara Pellegrini

Edinburgh UP, 2026

ISBN: 9781399526951

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-trans-narrators.html

• Demonstrates how contemporary trans narrators reshape current understandings of narrative form and gender identity
• Proposes a new methodology that combines trans studies and narratives studies
• Defines and describes a canon of contemporary trans-authored prose
• Enhances studies of first-person voice by expanding their corpus of texts
• Offers readings of popular trans authors (Emezi) as well as lesser-known ones (Gimpelevich)
• Discusses Anglophone trans narratives in a UK context as well as transnationally
• Centers gender in arguing for the political importance of narrative form

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

Trans Narrators examines a range of trans-authored novels, short stories and autobiographical narratives published after 2015 and develops a new methodology at the intersection of trans studies and narrative studies. The book identifies temporality, embodiment and reliability as key areas of investment for trans authors, and focuses specifically on the first-person narrator, showing how its formal characteristics impact how we understand gender and the body, the act of narrating the self, and the ability of marginalized subjects to speak and be visible. By creating a framework for reading trans narratives, this book responds to the urgency of promoting trans voices in a transnational context in which trans rights are at risk, as well as to a growing understanding of the role of narrative forms in shaping collective thought, politics and material conditions.

In illuminating the formal practices and social challenges of narrating trans lives in both fiction and autobiography, Trans Narrators offers brilliant new ways of thinking about all narrative acts. Deeply thoughtful and richly capacious, Pellegrini’s pathbreaking book is a milestone not only for trans studies but for narratology tout court. – Susan S. Lanser, Brandeis University

Chiara Pellegrini completed her PhD at Newcastle University in 2022 and currently works as an independent researcher and as an Equity and Inclusion Adviser at Canterbury Christ Church University. She has published articles and book chapters on queer theory and film adaptation, contemporary trans memoirs and novels, queer temporalities in film and television, the body in intersex narratives, and feminism and popular culture. She is the co-editor of a special issue of Narrative entitled ‘Trans/forming Narrative Studies’ (2024).

BOOK NEWS: Creative explorations of reproductive justice, 1959-73

The Reproductive Politics of American Literature and Film, 1959–1973

By Sophie A. Jones

Edinburgh UP, 2025

ISBN: 9781474433303

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-reproductive-politics-of-american-literature-and-film-1959-1973.html

In the long 1960s, struggles for the rights to abortion, contraception, and reproduction itself gathered momentum. This book explores reproduction in American literature and film produced between the late 1950s and the early 1970s, and argues that writers and filmmakers of this period engaged with the social horizons of pregnancy by reflecting on their own creative practices. In an era that witnessed a renewed emphasis on planned pregnancy and population control, authors and filmmakers were often preoccupied with the ways reproduction – both cultural and biological – might escape the drive to predict and plan. Tracing this preoccupation in key works of drama, film, poetry and prose, Sophie A. Jones argues that these works mobilize the concept of contingency to address the relationships of race, disability and reproductive freedom. Offering fresh perspectives on canonical and lesser-known works, the book makes a case for the central role of culture in forging new approaches to reproductive justice.

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

• Develops a new approach to the politics of reproduction in literature and film
• Uncovers new connections between literature, film, and the politics of reproduction
• Offers fresh approaches to a wide range of work by figures including Lorraine Hansberry, Stan Brakhage, Richard Yates and Sylvia Plath
• Develops the concept of ‘reproductive contingency’ to illuminate the cultural politics of reproduction in the long 1960s

"Remarkable in its insight, Sophie A. Jones’s The Reproductive Politics of American Literature and Film, 1959-1973 investigates a range of texts from the long 1960s to demonstrate the role of reproductive contingency in cultural and biological reproduction. This timely analysis offers an original contribution to American literary and cultural studies." – Beth Widmaier Capo, Illinois College

Sophie A. Jones is lecturer in contemporary literature and gender studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

SPECIAL FEATURE: Floating Cities and Amphibious Engineers, A Closer Look at JML 49.4

 David A. Vivian considers how Caribbean science fiction might resist the common climate-fiction plot of a lone savior or lone technological solution. Read more HERE 

His JML 49.4 article, "Reimagining Urban Ecology through Caribbean Science Fiction: Reading the Green Cities of Tobias Buckell and Stephanie Saulter," linked in the post, is available FREE

NEW ISSUE: JML 49.4 (Summer 2026) "Ecocriticism / Anti-Imperialism" is now LIVE!

Journal of Modern Literature 49.4 (Summer 2026), "Ecocriticism / Anti-Imperialism," edited by Edited by Ramón E. Soto-Crespo is now live on Project MUSE at https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/57714

Content includes:

Ramón E. Soto-Crespo 

Literature on a Hot Planet: An Introduction to Ecocriticism/Anti-Imperialism

FREE!

Ecocriticism

David A. Vivian

Reimagining Urban Ecology through Caribbean Science Fiction: Reading the Green Cities of Tobias Buckell and Stephanie Saulter

FREE!

Jie Chen and Quan Wang

Steaming into a Postcolonial Utopia: Reimagining Energy Futures in N.K. Jemisin’s “The Effluent Engine” 

Kuhelika Ghosh

Caribbean Blooms: The Invisible Hands of Tropical Gardens in Jamaica Kincaid’s My Garden (Book)

Huiming Liu

Financial Colonialism and Ecological Echoes in The Waste Land 

Hadas Wagner

“Let it Blaze”: Burning Leaves, Recycling, and Reform in Virginia Woolf’s Late Writing 

Joe Larios

Escape from Humanity: Subjective Constraint and the Non-Human in Virginia Woolf’s The Waves 

Anti-Imperialism

Leo Kadokura

Amidst the Wreckage: Joseph Conrad’s Epistemology of Englishness and Empire

Holly Eva Allen

One Tangle of Shadows: Ezra Pound’s “Homage to Sextus Propertius,” Harriet Monroe’s Poetry, and a Message Against Nationalism and Traditional Translation

Yiran Xu

Reimagining the Occupation in the 1990s: Postwar Butterfly, Disillusionment, and Historical Legacies in Shimada Masahiko’s Suisei no Jūnin 

Reviews 

Alyson Favilla

Leave No Trace: A Review of Gina Caison’s Erosion: American Environments and the Anxiety of Disappearance

Rory Michael Hutchings

Theorizing Like a Rat

Nataša Tučev

Conrad’s Spatial Narratives

Sarah Dowling

Language Questions and Language Answers

BOOK NEWS: The poetic innovations of the Noigandres group

Noigandres: Poetry Made New in Brazil

By Antonio Sergio Bessa

Fordham UP, 2026

ISBN: 9781531513689

https://fordhampress.com/noigandres-hb-9781531513672.html

The Noigandres group was one of the key movements in Brazilian modernism. Bessa’s account works through the specific poetic innovations that are the hallmark of the concrete poetics the group developed. These include their unprecedented reevaluation of Brazilian literary history, their distinctive exploration of graphic space inspired by emerging studies on cybernetics, and their embrace of a range of Modernist traditions, from Mallarmé’s vision of poetry as a constellation of words, to Joyce’s concept of the “verbivocovisual,” to Pound’s writings about the Chinese ideogram.

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

Bessa’s account begins with the core traits of concrete poetry developed by the Noigandres poets throughout the 1950s (the so-called “heroic phase” of concretism) and continues to the poetic experiments the group undertook after the military coup of 1964 in Brazil. The book concludes with translations of key primary texts: essays by the poets Augusto de Campos, Décio Pignatari and Haroldo de Campos and correspondence between the three poets and Ezra Pound.

Bessa persuasively situates the Noigandres group—the missing link between Modernism and the poetics of our digital age—within an artistic and philosophical lineage. Providing an accessible and incisive summary of the theoretical background and the particular cultural conditions of post-war Brazil, Bessa’s book is the ideal guide for understanding this novel, challenging, and important poetry.—Craig Dworkin, author of The Sound of Thinking: A Listener's Companion to Conceptual Music

Bessa renews our understanding of the Noigandres poets. His readings, with an eye on contemporary concerns, will introduce the movement to new generation of scholars.—Marília Librandi, author of Writing by Ear: Clarice Lispector and the Aural Novel

Antonio Sergio Bessa is a scholar of concrete poetry and the author of Öyvind Fahlström: The Art of Writing (2008). He has edited several volumes on concrete poetry including Haroldo de Campos’s Novas: Selected Writings (with Odile Cisneros, 2007), and Mary Ellen Solt: Toward a Theory of Concrete Poetry (2010).

BOOK NEWS: Tracing Chilean women poets' resistance to neoliberalism

Chilean Women’s Poetry under Neoliberalism, 1980–2020

By Bárbara Fernández-Melleda

Edinburgh UP, 2025

ISBN: 9781399541497

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-chilean-women-s-poetry-under-neoliberalism-1980-2020.html

Examines how women poets have expressed resistance against neoliberalism in Chile at times of intense political upheaval

• A 4-decade chronology following on women’s poetry response to neoliberal ideology
• Takes an interdisciplinary approach to poetic work engaging with neoliberalism in Chile
• Centers on iconic works by canonical Chilean authors that deserve study in an international setting

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

Chilean Women’s Poetry under Neoliberalism, 1980-2020 explores how the works of 6 women poets interact with the imposition and development of neoliberalism in Chile over 4 decades. The book follows a chronology that joins poetic work that criticizes the model from its inception during dictatorship times (1980s), through a democratic transition that did not live up to its expectations (1990s), until the naturalization of neoliberalism as a new normal that seems not possible to overcome (2000s). Finally, the 2010s show how the great inequalities denounced in the works from the previous 3 decades found concrete resistance through the October 2019 social revolt. This juncture brings new poetry hoping for a refoundation of Chile while also imagining the failure of a revolutionary movement. In the end, the latter came to pass.

Bárbara Fernández-Melleda brilliantly kickstarts her analytical journey when the sweeping violence of the Pinochet dictatorship installed the neoliberal model. Her book highlights various mechanisms of resistance against a repressive and individualistic social system. It also examines the asymmetry affecting Chilean literary production, perpetuating patriarchal practices that reduce or negate the contributions carried by the aesthetics of women writers. – Diamela Eltit, winner of the National Literature Prize of Chile 2018

Bárbara Fernández-Melleda is assistant professor in Latin American Studies at the University of Hong Kong. She has published articles on Gabriela Mistral, Elvira Hernández, Carmen Berenguer, and Nadia Prado, among other Chilean poets. She was awarded the Early Career Scheme Grant by the Hong Kong University Grants Committee for her project The Fall of Neoliberalism in the Chilean Post-Dictatorship Novel (2000–2020). Her current research interests delve into Sino-Latin American diplomatic relations, especially through the lives and works of Chilean poets Pablo Neruda and Armando Uribe. In 2024, she received the General Research Fund award to begin her 3-year project entitled Pablo Neruda in China.

BOOK NEWS: Youth catalyzing change in stories of Central American migration

Coming of Age(ncy) on the Migrant Trail: Adolescent Journeys in Contemporary Latinx Young Adult Literature

By Susana S. Martínez

Ohio State UP, 2025

ISBN: 978-0-8142-5965-8

https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814216026.html

Susana S. Martínez’s Coming of Age(ncy) on the Migrant Trail maps the contours of agency in young adult literature involving Latinx migrant youth—a project that could not be timelier given anti-immigrant hostility, LGBTQ+ book bans, and intense scrutiny of how we teach about race. Martínez leads readers chronologically and geographically from the 1980s Central American civil wars north through Mexico during the war on drugs to the recent experiences of those living undocumented in the United States, showing that YA is an ideal medium through which to tease out those stories of Central American migration that are often subsumed within Latinx studies and to combat stereotypes of young migrants. 

BOOK NEWS is an online-only feature announcing new publications in modernist and contemporary literary studies. These announcements do NOT constitute an endorsement by the Journal of Modern Literature.

Viewed through the lenses of intersectionality and racialized capitalism’s politics of disposability, the novels in question contribute to timely antiracist pedagogical discussions where youth emerge as catalysts for social change. By including non-Latinx authors who wrote about the Guatemalan and Salvadoran civil conflicts alongside authors from the Central American diaspora—Marcia Argueta Mickelson, Jennifer De Leon, and Bessie Flores Zaldívar among them—Martínez invites us to reflect on solidarity in contentious times.

“While young people, and particularly young people seeking refuge, are at the mercy of oppressive systems, Martínez sheds light on the ways they discover and enact their power. Her nuanced analysis makes visible the ways that global capitalist policies and processes on both sides of the border directly impact people.” —Amina Chaudhri, author of Multiracial Identity in Children’s Literature

“Martínez deftly uses data and social scientific research alongside her analysis of young adult novels to contextualize the causes of youth migration and to counter xenophobic ideologies that position migrants as criminal, deportable bodies.” —Cristina Herrera, author of ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature: Brown and Nerdy

Susana S. Martínez is associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages at DePaul University. Her articles have appeared in Ciberletras, Brújula, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, and elsewhere.