The Other Novel

Beautifully written in lucid prose, The Other Novel: Protest and Affirmation in Selected Other Novels, is an outstanding contribution to comparative literature, particularly its aesthetics of the other novel. Avoiding extremes of cultural relativism and aesthetic imperialism, or what Edmund Taylor calls ¿the tyranny of aesthetic universals, it convincingly illustrates the necessity of taking both text and context. In its analyses of nine acclaimed novels by internationally known writers, it explains how the dynamics of change in developing countries is a ¿potent force for redirecting history, for transforming society.¿ At the same time, it shows that the other novel has its own aesthetics ¿ unique and still consonant with international concepts of art. Dr. CARMINIA YAPTENCO Late Professor of Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines