David Mitchell's Post-Secular World

Rose Harris-Birtill is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of St Andrews, UK.

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgementsDavid Mitchell’s Fictional World: A ChronologyIntroducing David Mitchell’s Fictional WorldChapter 1: Enter the ‘World-Machine’: Navigating David Mitchell’s Narrative IslandsChapter 2: ‘Right yourself as best you may’: Voicing Tragedy in David Mitchell’s LibrettiChapter 3: ‘Looking down time’s telescope at myself’: Reincarnation and Global Futures in David Mitchell’s Fictional WorldsChapter 4: ‘What a sick zoo’: Escaping the Panopticon in David Mitchell’s MacronovelChapter 5: ‘Little things that speak of the big things’: Towards a Mandalic LiteratureAppendix A: David Mitchell’s UK Book SalesAppendix B: Tibetan Buddhist Mandala Sand PaintingAppendix C: Enlarged MandalaAppendix D: Sand Mandala ConstructionAppendix E: Wake Act 2 PhotographAppendix F: Wheel of Life MandalaAppendix G: An Interview with David Mitchell, 2015Appendix H: An Interview with David Mitchell, 2016David Mitchell: Selected Critical ReadingWorks CitedIndex

Rose Harris-Birtill persuasively argues that Mitchell's work--including libretti, short stories, and novels--maps a post-secular metaphysics and expresses a compassionate global ethics. In its comprehensive sweep and incisive arguments, this book sets a standard for Mitchell criticism to date and to come.