Breaking the Fall

Robert Detweiler is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He also served as the Institute's Director for eight years. He has published extensively on the intersection of religion, literature and culture.

Modern literary criticism has virtually neglected to interpret contemporary narrative fiction, poetry, and drama from a distinctly religious perspective. In this book, Robert Detweiler, the premier exponent of theology-based literary criticism, redresses this lack by presenting a clear and comprehensive study of religious themes in contemporary fiction. He applies the latest critical treatments to the study of religious themes in various works, including works by Margaret Atwood, Jorge Luis Borges, Annie Dillard, Franz Kafka, Milan Kundera, Walker Percy, and John Updike. By doing so, he keenly demonstrates that there are many ways to conduct a religious reading of a text.