Postmodernism in Slovak Prose

Abstract

In the genre of realistic novels, fiction is confined within the boundaries of the real world, yet the author or narrator presents it as reality, as if nothing were fabricated and the entire plot were simply transposed from reality into text. Contemporary authors disclose the processes of their creation, differentiating between what is fabrication, what is fiction, and what is directly incorporated from reality into the text. In postmodern prose, the methods of realism and modernism are interwoven, both integral to the artistic text. In Slovak literature, this phenomenon appears most notably in the works of Pavel Vilikovský and is even more pronounced in the works of Czech-French author Milan Kundera. Often, authors insert themselves into the narrative, particularly in the roles of commentator or by including mini-stories from their own lives into the plot. This is executed through various forms of metafiction. Metafictional techniques, while a hallmark of the postmodern text, are not new; similar elements have appeared in literature in previous centuries but never as extensively as they do now. By the end of the 1990s and into the first decade of the 21st century, Slovak literature witnessed the rise of authors with distinct postmodern prose features, such as Peter Pišťanek, Pavel Vilikovský, Lajos Grendel, Anton Baláž, Viliam Klimáiek, Daniela Kapitáňová, Michal Hvorecký, Pavol Rankov, and others. Metafiction is undoubtedly a defining characteristic of the postmodern text, primarily due to the increased prevalence of these elements compared to the past.