Realism, Form, and the Postcolonial Novel

The term peripheral realism was coined by Jed Esty and Colleen Lye in a 2012 special issue of Modern Language Quarterly. Because Robinette is not only recognizing but also developing this concept as it informs and is transformed in different ways by various postcolonial writers and texts, readers are encouraged to consult Esty and Lye's essay to better grasp this monograph's point of departure. [...]given the different permutations of peripheral realism that are examined throughout the book, it is sometimes confusing when certain adjectival forms--such as experimental realism, interrupted realism, or epistemological realism--occur without enough contextualization or explanation. [...]although Robinette does quote from and discuss the three writers' remarks about realism at the beginning of each chapter, it might have been helpful to inductively frame a theory of realist form based on the writers' essays or comments in a separate chapter or in the introduction.