Ansgar Allen

Allen's literary approach is characterised by fragmented narratives, metafictional techniques, "targeted irreverence",{{Cite web |date=2023-03-21 |title="It seemed necessary to take aim within the writing of fiction at some of the securities, the commonplaces, and the conceits, that lie behind literary culture": An Interview with Ansgar Allen — Unsound Methods |url=https://minorliteratures.com/2023/03/21/it-seemed-necessary-to-take-aim-within-the-writing-of-fiction-at-some-of-the-securities-the-commonplaces-and-the-conceits-that-lie-behind-literary-culture-an-interview-with-ansgar-allen/ |access-date= |website=minor literature[s] |language=en}} and a "radically intertextual" narrative style.{{Cite web |last=Press |first=Equus |date=2022-02-04 |title="Scratching at the underbelly of a voided present" – An Interview re: Ansgar Allen's Plague Theatre (forthcoming with Equus Press, 2022) |url=https://equuspress.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/scratching-at-the-underbelly-of-a-voided-present-an-interview-re-ansgar-allens-plague-theatre-forthcoming-with-equus-press-2022/ |access-date= |website=equus press |language=en}}

Allen has engaged a number of key figures in literature and philosophy in his writings, including Thomas Bernhard,{{Cite web |title=Ansgar Allen |url=https://globalbernhard.univie.ac.at/autorinnen/grossbritannien/ansgar-allen/ |access-date= |website=globalbernhard.univie.ac.at |language=de}}{{Cite web |date=2025-02-18 |title="Something Can Die and Yet Persist Interminably": A Conversation Around the Future of the Book with Ansgar Allen by S. D. Stewart |url=https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2025/02/18/ansgar-allen/ |access-date= |website=Heavy Feather Review |language=en}} Antonin Artaud,{{Cite web |last=manchestereviewofbooks |date=2022-06-05 |title=The Gesamtkunstwerk of fragments |url=https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2022/06/05/the-gesamtkunstwerk-of-fragments/ |access-date= |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Press |first=Equus |date=2022-02-04 |title="Scratching at the underbelly of a voided present" – An Interview re: Ansgar Allen's Plague Theatre (forthcoming with Equus Press, 2022) |url=https://equuspress.wordpress.com/2022/02/04/scratching-at-the-underbelly-of-a-voided-present-an-interview-re-ansgar-allens-plague-theatre-forthcoming-with-equus-press-2022/ |access-date= |website=equus press |language=en}} Georges Bataille,{{Cite web |title=Decapitation theory and university management: Some notes towards the derangement of academic life {{!}} Ephemeral Journal |url=https://ephemerajournal.org/contribution/decapitation-theory-and-university-management-some-notes-towards-derangement-academic |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240914023318/https://ephemerajournal.org/contribution/decapitation-theory-and-university-management-some-notes-towards-derangement-academic |archive-date=2024-09-14 |access-date= |website=ephemerajournal.org |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last=Allen |first=Ansgar |date=2024-08-01 |title=The death of thought: Reading Bataille in the ruins of a university |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00345237231223902 |journal=Research in Education |language=en |volume=119 |issue=1 |pages=65–78 |doi=10.1177/00345237231223902 |issn=0034-5237}}{{Cite journal |last=Allen |first=Ansgar |date=2024-04-01 |title=Bataille and the Poverty of Academic Form |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11217-023-09908-1 |journal=Studies in Philosophy and Education |language=en |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=127–140 |doi=10.1007/s11217-023-09908-1 |issn=1573-191X}} and Friedrich Nietzsche.{{Cite journal |last=Allen |first=Ansgar |date=2018-05-31 |title=The End of Education? Nietzsche, Foucault, Genealogy |url=https://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/view/1029 |journal=Philosophical Inquiry in Education |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |issn=2369-8659 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20201101135816/https://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/view/1029 |archive-date=2020-11-01}}{{Cite journal |last=Allen |first=Ansgar |date=2017-06-14 |title=Awaiting Education: Friedrich Nietzsche On the Future of Our Educational Institutions |url=https://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/view/913 |journal=Philosophical Inquiry in Education |language=en |volume=24 |issue=3 |issn=2369-8659 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20220823180221/https://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/view/913 |archive-date=2022-08-23}}

In a 2025 interview Allen stated that when he incorporates such authors in his fictions, it is with the aim of creating a space where their "more disturbing ideas are allowed to persist and interanimate".{{Cite web |date=2025-02-18 |title="Something Can Die and Yet Persist Interminably": A Conversation Around the Future of the Book with Ansgar Allen by S. D. Stewart |url=https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2025/02/18/ansgar-allen/ |access-date= |website=Heavy Feather Review |language=en}} This is to "allow the ideas themselves...to run amok to some extent...and keep them, as far as is possible, in an unresolved state".{{Cite web |date=2023-03-21 |title="It seemed necessary to take aim within the writing of fiction at some of the securities, the commonplaces, and the conceits, that lie behind literary culture": An Interview with Ansgar Allen — Unsound Methods |url=https://minorliteratures.com/2023/03/21/it-seemed-necessary-to-take-aim-within-the-writing-of-fiction-at-some-of-the-securities-the-commonplaces-and-the-conceits-that-lie-behind-literary-culture-an-interview-with-ansgar-allen/ |access-date= |website=minor literature[s] |language=en}}

Allen's work has been compared to that of Samuel Beckett,{{Cite web |last=manchestereviewofbooks |date=2020-10-13 |title=Hell is ordinary |url=https://manchestereviewofbooks.wordpress.com/2020/10/13/hell-is-ordinary/ |access-date= |language=en}} Italo Calvino,{{Cite web |date=2022-02-04 |title=plague theatre |url=https://equuspress.wordpress.com/plague-theatre/ |access-date= |website=equus press |language=en}} and Jorge Luis Borges.{{Cite web |date=2020-04-15 |title=Wretch |url=https://ansgarallen.com/wretch/ |access-date= |website=Ansgar Allen |language=en}} His more experimental writing has been described by Simon Palfrey as "like listening to the insomnia of Hamlet",{{Cite web |date=2022-01-09 |title=Burton's Anatomy |url=https://ansgarallen.com/burtons-anatomy/ |access-date= |website=Ansgar Allen |language=en}} and by Eugen Bacon as "exquisitely weird".{{Cite web |title=Aurealis — Science Fiction & Fantasy |url=https://aurealis.com.au/ |access-date= |website=aurealis.com.au}}

Allen's novels have been considered "reminiscent of the work of Lars Iyer, although while Iyer's novels take the form of quasi-Platonic dialogues in which the characters talk about philosophical ideas, Allen's seem more like parables or fables".{{Cite web |last=Green |first=Daniel |title=Issue Five |url=https://www.unbeatenpaths.net/p/issue-five |access-date= |website=www.unbeatenpaths.net |language=en}}

• Midden Hill (2025)
• Jonathan Martin (2025)
• The Faces of Pluto (2024)
• Black Vellum (2023)
• The Wake and the Manuscript (2022)
• Plague Theatre (2022)
• Burton's Anatomy (2022)
• The Reading Room (2021)
• The Reaches (2021)
• The Sick List (2021)
• Wretch (2020)
• Cynicism (2020)
• The Cynical Educator (2017)
• Education and Philosophy: An Introduction (2017) with Roy Goddard
• Benign Violence: Education in and beyond the Age of Reason (2014)

• Experimental literature
• Metafiction
• Intertextuality
• Cynicism (philosophy)
• Cynicism (contemporary)

• [https://ansgarallen.com/ Author website]
• [https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/education/people/academic/edu/ansgar-allen A.Allen, University of Sheffield]
• [https://www.erratumpress.com/ Erratum Press]

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Category:British writers

Category:British male novelists

Category:British academics

Category:21st-century British novelists

Category:21st-century British writers

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:Living people