The Concept of “Capitalist Realism” in Literary Context: Reading Adrian Schiop’s Novels in Terms of the Sociology of Literature

Abstract

The first part of the article proposes a general overview of the notion of “capitalist realism,” introduced by Mihai Iovănel in his History of Romanian Contemporary Literature 1990‒2020 as one of the paradigms which help to read and classify post-Communist Romanian literature taking into consideration the political, social and economic conditioning of literary production. The second part of the paper aims to investigate the individual trajectory of Adrian Schiop (b. 1973) ‒ one of the authors classified by Iovănel as representatives of “capitalist realism,” whose literary and artistic work is defined by a high degree of social relevance. By deconstructing collective narratives and cliches, Schiop proposes a polemical point of view on post-Communist society, occupying at the same time the position of a very self-conscious agent within the Romanian literary field.