Creativity and Contingency in Literary Writing

The first book to investigate, analyze and theorize the creative processes of literary writers, Creativity and Contingency in Literary Writing uses author interviews, manuscript genetics and textual evidence to explore creativity from the authorial perspective.

Studying an author's practice, literary form and contextual contingencies as elements that affect literary creativity, Karin Kukkoken develops theoretical models for examining the age-old problem of artistic creation and how it has been put to works by authors from the nineteenth century to the age of digital fiction, across a range of languages. With insights from the cognitive sciences, anthropology and philosophy of mind as well as literary studies, the book calls upon interviews with Siri Hustvedt, Marina Warner, Anne Weber, Camille Laurens, Gwenaelle Aubry, Kate Pullinger, Gunnhild Oyehaug, Maria Stepanova and Gyoergy Dragoman and studies the manuscripts of Charlotte Bronte, Cora Sandel, Elsa Morante and Italo Calvino. Overcoming the traditional distinction between creative agent, process and creative product, Creativity and Contingency in Literary Writing is as accessible and illuminating as it is important to understandings of human creativity.