The postmodern humanism of Philip K. Dick

by Jason P. Vest

"From the short story "Roog" to novels VALIS and The Divine Invasion, few twentieth-century authors have had a greater impact than Philip K. Dick. Dick might be most famous as a prolific, subversive, and mordantly funny science-fiction writer, but he has also produced visionary fiction in the tradition of Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, and Italo Calvino. The Postmodern Humanism of Philip K. Dick explores the fiction of this American novelist and examines his work in relation to these other literary fantasists." "In this book, Jason P. Vest argues that Dick adapts the conventions of science fiction and postmodernism to reflect humanist concerns about the difficulties of maintaining identity, agency, and autonomy in the latter half of the twentieth century. By comparing his writing to that of Kafka, Borges, and Calvino, The Postmodern Humanism of Philip K. Dick demonstrates that Dick's fiction is a barometer of postmodern American life, even as it participates in an international tradit