Don DeLillo, Mao II

Martyn Colebrook (University of Hull)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Written in 1991, Mao II is a vital text in Don DeLillo’s expansive corpus of work and is an incisive meditation on the relationship between art, terrorism and the practitioners of both. It is DeLillo’s tenth novel and reinforces his prevailing concerns with the heightened dependence of the individual artist upon an all encompassing Capitalist system and the diminishing significance of the artist as an agent of social change or influence. Both of these thematic engagements underpin the narrative of Mao II.

The synopsis of Mao II offers many illuminations and revelations as to the range of his subject matter. The narrative focuses primarily on the novelist Bill Gray, the author of an outstanding …

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3207 words

Citation: Colebrook, Martyn. "Mao II". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 June 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12022, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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