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by Cyril Camus (Author)
Available in English for the first time, this wide-ranging critical study examines Neil Gaiman's fiction through the lenses of intertextuality, metafiction, and cultural context. Informed by comics, novels, short stories, and film, Camus situates Gaiman's oeuvre within a literary network that includes Alan Moore, Shakespeare, Borges, Philip Jose Farmer, Jack Kirby, and Winsor McCay. The study explores how myth operates across Gaiman's fiction as both an inherited narrative and an evolving cultural practice, shaping the meaning and structure of his works.
Through both theoretical perspective and close analysis of sources, the book posits fabulation as a form of mythmaking, through which Gaiman's works both expose and participate in the mechanisms of fantasy. Central to the argument is the stance that Gaiman's fiction stages itself as a pseudo-myth, using self-reflection to reveal how fantasy partakes in both the construction and renewal of authority, tradition, and belief. The updated English translation is augmented with additional commentary and a new preface that traces the book's research as well as recent accusations against Gaiman, situating the study within more contemporary contexts.
Author Biography
Cyril Camus teaches English to post-secondary students at Ozenne High School in Toulouse, France and is an associate member of the Centre for Anglophone Studies (CAS) of the Université de Toulouse-Jean Jaurès. He has written for the French journals Otrante, Caliban and Miranda, the American journals Shofar, Studies in the Novel and Utopian Studies, the British journal Studies in Comics, and the Hong Kong journal Cha.
