Romanele memoriei: noi subgenuri pentru literatura română contemporană

The Novels of Memory: New Subgenres for Contemporary Romanian Literature

Abstract: This article argues for a rethinking of how we label the diversity of subgenres that have emerged in the postcolonial and post-Cold War world within the global genre of the novel, with the so-called memory turn and its aftermath. We identify the memory novel as one of the most important genres in contemporary global literature, and we zoom in on its forms and dynamics in post-communist Romania. Drawing on a corpus of over 200 novels published in Romania between 1990 and 2022, we propose a new set of subgenre labels that have the potential to more accurately capture the formal, thematic, and political characteristics of contemporary novels from Romania and beyond. These labels are: testimonial novel, post-testimonial novel, coming-of-age novel, transgenerational novel, and historiographical metafiction.

Keywords: novel of memory, subgenres, postcolonialism, postcommunism, world literature, Romania

Acknowledgement: Acest articol a fost finanțat printr-un grant al Ministerului Cercetării, Inovării și Digitalizării, CNCS – UEFISCDI, număr de proiect PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-1429, prin PNCDI III. Autorii îi mulțumesc Alinei Moroșanu, membră a proiectului MEMORO, pentru suportul oferit în prelucrarea datelor.

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