Urgent Help Needed: LITERATURE OF VIOLENCE

[Tellem Chaho]

Hello, I'm a Master student of crosscultural studies. For my thesis I need to analyse and criticize a novel. I chose to talk about violence in literature, mainly in the subverted communities, like Iranian community, or North African communities which suffered terrorism, namely Algeria. Most Algerian literature discussing the topic is in French, yet I'm onliged to find a novel written in English, I had to let go my dream of writing about Algeria, yet I still insist on writing about violence and it's psychological impact on its victims and on society. Would you like please to help me by providing me with titles of NOVELS which discuss violence or present a story where people suffer from violence?

I have to write my research proposal for next week but I still have no novel to extract the topic from.

Thank you

[kelby_lake]

There are some Algerian novels available in English:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fantasia-Djebar/dp/0435086219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307531274&sr=8-1

As for violence in novels, A Clockwork Orange would be a good one to study.

[Gregory Samsa]

Much violence in "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy.

From Wikipedia:
Critic Harold Bloom praised Blood Meridian as one of the best 20th century American novels, describing it as "worthy of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick," but admitted that he found the book's pervasive violence so distasteful that he had several false starts before reading the book entirely. Caryn James argued that the novel's violence was a "slap in the face" to modern readers cut off from the brutality of life, while Terrence Morgan thought that, though initially shocking, the effect of the violence gradually waned until the reader was bored. Lilley argues that many critics struggle with the fact that McCarthy does not use violence for "jury-rigged, symbolic plot resolutions… In McCarthy's work, violence tends to be just that; it is not a sign or symbol of something else."

[Schokokeks]

How about American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis? Plenty of info to write on the psychological effects of violence (or imaginations thereof) on an individual!

[ChicagoReader]

I agree with Samsa, Blood Meridian was probably the most violent book I have ever read. It deals with scalp-hunting in 1850's Mexico. I am also actually reading American Psycho right now which so far, seems like it would be a good fit for what you are looking for though, it doesn't really deal with the affects of the violence on the victims, at least, not yet as I'm only on page 180.

[oanna]

You could try "Millennium series" by Stieg Larsson (Sweden) ... There are three books and you can see very clear the effects of violence. I've read them in three days.

Good luck with your thesis!

[Schokokeks]

I am also actually reading American Psycho right now which so far, seems like it would be a good fit for what you are looking for though, it doesn't really deal with the affects of the violence on the victims...

I think it deals very well with the effect violence can have on the one executing it, and opens up the possibility that the offender, too, might be a sort of victim of his own violence. Might be an interesting addition to your thesis, Tellem :yesnod:.