Picaresque

20th and 21st centuries

The Projects and Wanderings of Alfanhui, a novel published in 1953 by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, is said to "follow the Spanish picaresque tradition" insofar as "any Spanish book about a youth who travels during the period of a few years is likely to be classified as picaresque." Camilo José Cela's The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942), Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953) were also among mid-twentieth-century picaresque literature. John A. Lee's Shining with the Shiner (1944) tells amusing tales about New Zealand folk hero Ned Slattery (1840–1927) surviving by his wits and beating the 'Protestant work ethic'. So too is Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull (1954), which like many novels emphasizes the theme of a charmingly roguish ascent in the social order. Under the Net (1954) by Iris Murdoch, Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1959) is a German picaresque novel. John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) is a picaresque novel that parodies the historical novel and uses black humor by intentionally incorrectly using literary devices.