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
Culture20th-century French dramatists and playwrightsFrench socialistsPhilosophers of pessimismFrench male essayistsLegion of Honour refusals20th-century atheistsFrench anarchists, French anti-capitalists, French anti-fascists20th-century French philosophersAnti-Stalinist leftModernist writers20th-century French male writers20th-century French novelistsAbsurdist writersFrench humanistsNobel laureates in LiteratureFrench Nobel laureatesAtheist philosophersLibertarian socialistsPhilosophers of death20th-century French essayists, 20th-century French short story writersExistentialistsFrench atheists20th centuryFranceKafka's The Trial
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Franz Kafka's novel The Trial.
27 November 2014
Featuring: Elizabeth Boa, Steve Connor, Ritchie Robertson
CultureMagic realism writersModernist writersJewish socialistsJewish atheistsJewish existentialistsAustrian atheistsAbsurdist writers20th-century deaths from tuberculosisAphoristsFabulists20th-century Austrian male writers, Jewish novelists, Jews from Austria-Hungary, Writers from Austria-HungaryCharles University alumni20th centuryLawSamuel 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
CultureIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsFormer Anglicans20th-century Irish novelists, 20th-century Irish short story writers, Irish male short story writersPeople with Parkinson's diseasePhilosophers of pessimismIrish writers in French, People educated at Portora Royal SchoolAlumni of Trinity College DublinIrish male novelistsIrish essayistsScholars of Trinity College DublinModernist writersBurials at Montparnasse CemeteryIrish expatriates in FranceAcademics of Trinity College DublinAnti-natalistsAbsurdist writersFrench Resistance membersNobel laureates in LiteratureFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesWriters from Dublin (city)20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsPrix Italia winners20th-century essayistsExistentialists20th centuryIrelandMedicine