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

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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).