59 Absurdist fiction

Absurdist fiction is a genre of novels, plays, poems, films, or other media that focuses on the experiences of characters in situations where they cannot find any inherent purpose in life, most often represented by ultimately meaningless actions and events that call into question the certainty of existential concepts such as truth or value.

Antkind is the 2020 debut novel of American screenwriter and film director Charlie Kaufman.

John Kendrick Bangs was an American author, humorist, editor and satirist.

David McAlister Barry is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for the Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005. He has also written numerous books of humor and parody, as well as comic novels and children's novels. Barry's honors include the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary (1988) and the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism (2005).

Joe Biden is a recurring fictionalized characterization of the American politician of the same name in satirical online newspaper The Onion. Between 2009 and 2019, The Onion staff consistently portrayed Biden as an outrageous character who shared almost nothing in common with his namesake besides the title of vice president of the United States. Instead, the publication portrayed Biden as a blue-collar "average Joe", an affable "goofy uncle", a muscle car driver, an avid fan of 1980s hair metal, a raucous party animal, a shameless womanizer, a recidivist petty criminal, and a drug-dealing outlaw. The Biden character became one of The Onion's most popular features during the Obama presidency, garnering critical acclaim and a large readership.

BorderIrish or @BorderIrish was the pseudonym of an anonymous satirical author, resident on the island of Ireland, who from 2018 to 2020 wrote in the first person about being the 97-year-old 499 km (310 mi) Irish border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, both on Twitter as @BorderIrish and in print with I Am the Border, So I Am (2019); and in particular on the implications of Brexit on the Irish land border.

The Chimes of Midnight is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio play was broadcast on digital radio station BBC 7 in four weekly parts, starting on 17 December 2005, and has been rebroadcast on the same channel beginning on 17 December 2006, and again on 26 and 27 September 2007.

Coyote Blue is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 1994.

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter pilot. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.

Di Gi Charat is a Japanese manga and anime series created by Koge-Donbo. The series follows a catgirl named Di Gi Charat "Dejiko" who was adopted as the mascot of Broccoli's retail chain store, Gamers. The original anime series and its original video animations (OVAs) are set in a Gamers store. There are twenty Gamers stores across Japan.

A Dirty Job is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 2006. While reflecting the author's absurdist tendencies, the content of the novel draws significantly from his own experiences in tending to the needs of close family and friends in the stages of dying.

@dril is a pseudonymous Twitter user best known for his idiosyncratic style of absurdist humor and non sequiturs. The account, its author, and the character associated with the tweets are all commonly referred to as dril or wint, both rendered lowercase but often capitalized by others. Since his first tweet in 2008, dril has become a popular and influential Twitter user with more than 1.6 million followers.

The Fall is a philosophical novel by Albert Camus. First published in 1956, it is his last complete work of fiction. Set in Amsterdam, The Fall consists of a series of dramatic monologues by the self-proclaimed "judge-penitent" Jean-Baptiste Clamence, as he reflects upon his life to a stranger. In what amounts to a confession, Clamence tells of his success as a wealthy Parisian defense lawyer who was highly respected by his colleagues. His crisis, and his ultimate "fall" from grace, was meant to invoke, in secular terms, the fall of man from the Garden of Eden. The Fall explores themes of innocence, imprisonment, non-existence, and truth. In a eulogy to Albert Camus, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described the novel as "perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood" of Camus' books.

The Arsonists, previously also known in English as The Firebugs or The Fire Raisers, was written by Max Frisch in 1953, first as a radio play, then adapted for television and the stage (1958) as a play in six scenes. It was revised in 1960 to include an epilogue.

Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore. Published in 2003, it combines elements of absurdist and fantasy fiction, as well as the author's own brand of social commentary and humor. A serious theme in the novel involves environmentalism, particularly that associated with whales; and the author's personal research-experience with marine biologists helped to inform much of the story.

Fool is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, released on February 10, 2009.

Frisco Pigeon Mambo is a 2000 absurdist fiction novel by author C.D. Payne. The plot revolves around a group of pigeons who were raised in a scientific lab and forced to smoke cigarettes and drink sherry. Because they have only interacted with humans, and because one scientist in particular greets them in the morning with "Hello, men," they assume they are human. They are extremely happy living in captivity, and their lives are upturned when a clueless animal rights group frees them from the lab. In revenge, the birds wreak havoc on San Francisco in order to maintain their smoking and drinking habits.

A Happy Death is a novel by Absurdist French writer-philosopher Albert Camus. The existentialist topic of the book is the "will to happiness," the conscious creation of one's happiness, and the need of time to do so. It draws on memories of the author including his job at the maritime commission in Algiers, his suffering from tuberculosis, and his travels in Europe.

Haré+Guu is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Renjuro Kindaichi which ran in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan magazine from 1997 to 2002. The series focuses on the story of a 10-year-old boy named Haré who lives in the jungle and his misadventures with Guu, a liminal being who usually presents herself as a young girl.

Carl Hiaasen is an American journalist and novelist. He began his career as a newspaper reporter and by the late 1970s had begun writing novels in his spare time, both for adults and for young-adult readers. Two of his novels have been made into feature films.

The Holy Terror is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is notable for incorporating Frobisher, a regular character from Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip during the mid-1980s.

A House-Boat on the Styx is a fantasy novel written by John Kendrick Bangs in 1895.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun is a novel by American absurdist writer Christopher Moore, published in 1997. It is based partly on the author's personal experiences in Micronesia.

Je Suis Auto is an upcoming Austrian social science fiction indie comedy film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and Juliana Neuhuber. Chase Masterson is voicing the title character "Auto", a self-driving taxi, and Johannes Grenzfurthner plays Herbie Fuchsel, an unemployed nerd critical of artificial intelligence. The film is a farcical comedy that deals with issues such as artificial intelligence, politics of labor, and tech culture.

Kangaroo Notebook is a novel written by the Japanese writer Kōbō Abe between ca. 1973 – 1977 and published in 1991.

Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet-era avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 2002. In this work the author seeks to fill in the "lost" years of Jesus through the eyes of Jesus' childhood pal, "Levi bar Alphaeus who is called Biff".

Love Creeps (2005) is the third novel by American writer Amanda Filipacchi. It was translated into French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Polish, and Korean. It tackles issues of love, desire, obsession, and addiction.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 1999. It is set in the same fictional town of Pine Cove, California, as his first novel, Practical Demonkeeping, and also brings back some of the same characters.

Metamorphosis is an allegorical novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggles to adjust to this new condition. The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered. In popular culture and adaptations of the novella, the insect is commonly depicted as a cockroach.

Midnight Delight is an American absurdist anthology film written and directed by Rohit Gupta. It is composed of nine vignettes of characters at a smoking lounge and their antics with people they have never met before. It stars an ensemble cast and produced by Gupta and Saumin Mehta under the production company Dot and Feather Entertainment. The film is the second feature directed by Gupta, best known for Life! Camera Action... and Another Day Another Life.

My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist is a postmodernist/absurdist book written by Mark Leyner, published by Vintage Contemporaries in 1990. Portions of it were originally published in Fiction International, Rolling Stock, Hallwalls Anthology, Esquire or Harper's Magazine before being compiled into its current form.

Nude Men is the 1993 debut novel by American writer Amanda Filipacchi. At age twenty-two, she wrote it as her thesis for Columbia University's graduate creative writing program. It was published by Viking in hardback and by Penguin in paperback, and was translated into 13 languages, including French, Turkish, and Hebrew. The Chicago Tribune wrote that it was "reminiscent of some of Philip Roth's zanier explorations of identity and sexuality." Kirkus Reviews noted that it "combines the techniques of Thomas McGuane with bits of Lolita and The Picture of Dorian Gray."

Orange Crush is Tim Dorsey's third novel, and the first not to star Serge A. Storms as the main character. It is a frequently dark spoof of the politics of Florida and the United States' involvement in the Balkans.

Pink is a novel written by filmmaker Gus Van Sant. It was published in 1997 on the Nan Talese imprint of Doubleday.

The Plague is a novel by Albert Camus. Published in 1947, it tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

Practical Demonkeeping is a novel by American writer Christopher Moore, published in 1992. His first novel, it deals with a demon from Hell and his master. The novel has been translated and published in German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.

Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English humorist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.

Pugyuru (ぷぎゅる) is a Japanese four-panel comic strip by Tohiro Konno. The manga was first serialized in the Japanese manga magazine Monthly Magazine Z in June, 2001. Pugyuru was adapted into an anime series that was broadcast on April 12, 2004 on the television station Kids Station. The initial broadcast lasted for thirteen episodes and ended on July 5, 2004.

The Queue is a 2013 satire novel by Basma Abdel Aziz. It was first published in English in 2016. The novel explores totalitarianism and bureaucracy through the lens of a fictional Middle Eastern state and the people under its control.

Robert Fleming Rankin is a prolific British author of comedic fantasy novels. Born in Parsons Green, London, he started writing in the late 1970s, and first entered the bestsellers lists with Snuff Fiction in 1999, by which time his previous eighteen books had sold around one million copies. His books are a mix of science fiction, fantasy, the occult, urban legends, running gags, metafiction, steampunk and outrageous characters. According to the biography printed in some Corgi editions of his books, Rankin refers to his style as 'Far Fetched Fiction' in the hope that bookshops will let him have a section to himself. Many of Rankin's books are bestsellers.

A Report on the Party and Guests is a 1966 Czechoslovakian political satire film directed by Jan Němec. It was banned in Czechoslovakia from 1966 to 1968 for being an allegory of socialist regimes. After a short release during the Prague Spring, it was banned again, this time for twenty years. In 1974, director Jan Němec was forced to leave the country.

Rick and Morty is an American adult animated science fiction sitcom created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block, Adult Swim. The series follows the misadventures of cynical mad scientist Rick Sanchez and his good-hearted, but fretful grandson Morty Smith, who split their time between domestic life and interdimensional adventures.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kōji Kumeta. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from April 2005 to June 2012, with its chapters collected in 30 tankōbon volumes. The series follows Nozomu Itoshiki, a teacher who takes all aspects of life, word, and culture in the most negative light possible. The series satirizes politics, media, and Japanese society. The manga was adapted into three anime television series and two sets of original video animations (OVAs) animated by Shaft between 2007 and 2010. In 2007, the manga received the 31st Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series of thirteen children's novels written by American author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The books follow the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire. After their parents' death in a fire, the children are placed in the custody of a murderous relative, Count Olaf, who attempts to steal their inheritance and, later, orchestrates numerous disasters with the help of his accomplices as the children attempt to flee. As the plot progresses, the Baudelaires gradually confront further mysteries surrounding their family and deep conspiracies involving a secret society known as V.F.D., with connections to Olaf, their parents, and many other relatives. The series is narrated by Lemony Snicket, who dedicates each of his works to his deceased love interest, Beatrice, and often attempts to dissuade the reader from reading the Baudelaires' story.

The Seventh Day is a 2013 novel by Yu Hua. It was published in China by New Star Press in June 2013. An English translation by Allan Hepburn Barr was published by Pantheon Books in January 2015.

The Stranger, also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella by French author Albert Camus. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus' philosophy, absurdism, coupled with existentialism; though Camus personally rejected the latter label.

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror is a 2004 novel by American writer Christopher Moore. Set during Christmas, it brings together several favored characters from his previous books set in the fictional town of Pine Cove, a recurring location in Moore's novels.

Susan's Big Day is a 2010 absurdist animated short film that was originally directed and written by Jeffrey Uhlmann in 1983. It tells the story of a pivotal event in the life of a young girl, Susan, on the day of her mother's date with a fire chief.

The Theatre of the Absurd is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence.

The Trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka between 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor to the reader. Heavily influenced by Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, Kafka even went so far as to call Dostoevsky a blood relative. Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never completed, although it does include a chapter which appears to bring the story to an intentionally abrupt ending.

Twin Peaks is an American mystery-horror serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on ABC on April 8, 1990, and ran for two seasons until its cancellation in 1991. In the years following its release, the show gained a devoted cult following and has been referenced in a wide variety of media. Twin Peaks is often listed among the greatest television series of all time, and has received universal acclaim from critics and audiences. It is considered a landmark turning point in television drama.

Konstantin Konstantinovich Vaginov was a Russian poet and novelist.

Vapor (1999) is the second novel by American writer Amanda Filipacchi. It was translated into French, Italian, Dutch, Russian, and Polish.

The Vicar is a persona and multimedia project created by record producer, songwriter and Internet entrepreneur David Singleton. Since 2001, the project has produced music, a public diary, fictional stories and several culture-jamming initiatives.

Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky was a Russian poet and dramatist with formidable influence on "unofficial" and avant-garde art during and after the times of the Soviet Union. Vvedensky is widely considered as one of the most original and important authors to write in Russian in the early Soviet period. Vvedensky considered his own poetry "a critique of reason more powerful than Kant's."

What It's Like Being Alone is a Canadian adult animated television series which aired on CBC Television in 2006. It is a black comedy created by Brad Peyton, and combines clay animation with voice work by Stacey DePass, Adam Reid, Dwayne Hill, Julie Lemieux, Peter Cugno, and Andrew Sabiston.

Will and Testament is an absurdist fiction novel written by Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth. It was written and published in 2016 by Cappelen Damm. In 2019 the novel was translated into English by Charlotte Barslund and published by Verso Books. Will and Testament tells the story of Bergljot, a woman living with a history of sexual assault, as she gets caught up in family drama over an inheritance dispute that reignites childhood trauma. The novel received numerous awards but also received backlash for accused literary ethics violations.

Youth in Revolt: The Journals of Nick Twisp is a 1993 epistolary novel by C. D. Payne. The story is told in a picaresque fashion and makes heavy use of black humor and camp. The book contains parts one through three of an eleven-part series.