Foucault and Fiction develops a unique approach to thinking about the power of literature by drawing upon the often neglected concept of experience in Foucault's work.

For Foucault, an 'experience book' is a book which transforms our experience by acting on us in a direct and unsettling way. Timothy O'Leary develops and applies this concept to literary texts. Starting from the premise that works of literature are capable of having a profound effect on their audiences, he suggests a way of understanding how these effects are produced. Offering extended analyses of Irish...