AustLit

'As a literary genre, academic fiction has emerged in recent years as one of the most popular modes for satirizing the cultural conflicts and sociological nuances inherent in campus life. Well-known academic novels include Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim and David Lodge's Small World in Britain; Saul Bellow's Herzog; Nabokov's Pnin in America; Michael Wilding's Academia Nuts and Elizabeth Jolley's The Sugar Mother in Australia. From a global point of view, this paper aims to explore the development of academic fiction in Britain, America as well as Australia. Academic novels are often comic or satirical, often counterpointing intellectual pretensions and human weaknesses. Some, however, attempt a serious treatment of university life. Academic fiction develops at a rapid speed in the 20th century and has become an indispensable and distinct genre of literature worldwide.' (102)