Self-Conscious Realism: Metafiction and the Nineteenth-Century Russian Novel

Does metafiction - the literary technique that forces readers to acknowledge that they are reading a work of fiction - have a hidden past? Margarita Vaysman's insightful study challenges the view of metafiction as a postmodern phenomenon and reveals that it thrived in mid-nineteenth century in Russia. Practised by writers of disparate ideological persuasions, metafiction was the creative answer to the period's twin preoccupations with politics and aesthetics. Moreover, it wove these contemp...