On the Possibility of Posthuman(ist) Literature

When asked what novels he would call “posthuman”, Stephan Herbrechter answered that he had not found any posthumanist literature yet, that “it would be literature written by stones [...] or based on animal traces”. He might have been puzzled because he understood the posthuman as non-human; how could, therefore, a novel be written without human agency? This paper investigates the very possibility of a posthuman(ist) literature and the way writers seek to deal with this presumable dead-end. It considers various novels whose characters are non-human but focuses more particularly on Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island, which can be seen as an example of both posthuman and posthumanist literature because the presence of genetically engineered clones as narrators (and possibly narratees) seems to affect the form and structure of the novel.
Drawing upon narratology, critical posthumanism and theories of the posthuman, this paper seeks to establish if a posthuman(ist) perspective has an actual influence on storytelling and form – whether it be language or layout. Lastly, after a review of the concepts of posthumanism, the posthuman and transhumanism, and an attempt at settling the recurrent confusions around them, it concludes questioning the (im)possibility of a posthuman(ist) literature.