Abstract
Over the past decade, China Miéville has established himself as a major talent in contemporary urban fantasy. Fantasy is a notoriously conservative genre. Its promise is one of giving expression to transformative potential opened up by an othering of the world, but the mainline of the tradition has actually been dedicated to capping any transgressive spirit. For Miéville, weird fiction is an expression of the sublime as an alien, predatory, totalitarian threat. In his hands, the fantastic harbours powers which rival such dread but which do not choke off the promise of transformation by seeking closure in some redemptive status quo. The article argues that fiction itself is recognized by the author as a reality-producing and transforming agent. Miéville's urban fantasies posit narrative itself as a political tool, conjuring performative virtual spaces immanent to reality.
Keywords
Bergson, Deleuze, fabulation, the fantastic, language, perception
How to Cite
Coley, R. & Lockwood, D., (2012) “The Radical Fantastic: Fabulatory Politics in China Miéville's Cities of 'Lies-that-Truth'”, C21 Literature: Journal of 21st-Century Writings 1(1), 28–44.