
Absurdist writers
Absurdist fiction is a genre of novels, plays, poems, films, or other media that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.The absurdist genre of literature arose in the 1950s and 1960s, first predominantly in France and Germany, prompted by post-war disillusionment. Absurdist fiction is a reaction against the surge in Romanticism in Paris in the 1830s, the collapse of religious tradition in Germany, and the societal and philosophical revolution led by the expressions of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche.Common elements in absurdist fiction include satire, dark humor, incongruity, the abasement of reason, and controversy regarding the philosophical condition of being "nothing".
3 episodes
Episodes in this category also belong to the following categories:
Camus
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Nobel Prize winning Algerian-French writer and existentialist philosopher Albert Camus.
3 January 2008
Featuring: Peter Dunwoodie, David Walker, Christina Howells
CultureNobel laureates in Literature20th-century atheistsExistentialistsPhilosophers of deathAbsurdist writersAnti-Stalinist leftFrench atheists20th-century French dramatists and playwrightsFrench Nobel laureates20th-century French novelistsFrench humanistsLegion of Honour refusalsFrench anarchists, French anti-capitalists, French anti-fascists20th-century French male writersLibertarian socialistsAtheist philosophersFrench male essayists20th-century French philosophersFrench socialistsModernist writersPhilosophers of pessimism20th-century French essayists, 20th-century French short story writersKafka's The Trial
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Franz Kafka's novel The Trial.
27 November 2014
Featuring: Elizabeth Boa, Steve Connor, Ritchie Robertson
Samuel Beckett
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the author of Waiting for Godot, who lived in Paris and wrote in French as he found that more difficult than writing in English
17 January 2019
Featuring: Steven Connor, Laura Salisbury, Mark Nixon
Culture20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsNobel laureates in LiteratureExistentialistsPrix Italia winnersAbsurdist writersFormer AnglicansPeople with Parkinson's diseaseIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish essayistsBurials at Montparnasse Cemetery20th-century Irish novelists, 20th-century Irish short story writers, Irish male short story writersIrish writers in French, People educated at Portora Royal SchoolFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAcademics of Trinity College Dublin20th-century essayistsScholars of Trinity College DublinWriters from Dublin (city)Irish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsFrench Resistance membersIrish expatriates in FranceIrish male novelistsAlumni of Trinity College DublinAnti-natalistsModernist writersPhilosophers of pessimism