A Goodreads user asked Tentatively, A Convenience:

I'm stuck in early-mid 20th French and German lit, Boll, Durrenmatt, Genet, Celine, etc, can you recommend some new experimental European lit?

Tentatively, A Convenience I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that you're reading this work in translation & that you're, therefore, looking for European work translated into English. Since experimental work is often difficult to translate I take it for granted that decades might go by until an English translation is available, if ever.

The 1st work that I think of is Arno Schmidt's "Bottom's Dream". As you can see in the Wikipedia entry below, it was written from 1963-1970 &, therefore, doesn't really qualify as more recent work, but the English translation dates from 2016 - which makes it 'recent' for English readers.

"Bottom's Dream (German: Zettel’s Traum or ZETTEL’S TRAUM as the author wrote the title) is a novel published in 1970 by West German author Arno Schmidt. Schmidt began writing the novel in December 1963 while he and Hans Wollschläger began to translate the works of Edgar Allan Poe into German.[1] The novel was inspired by James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake, particularly Schmidt's use of columns (his "SpaltenTechnik"), which Schmidt claimed was borrowed from the Wake.

"The gargantuan novel was published in folio format with 1,334 pages. The story is told mostly in three shifting columns, presenting the text in the form of notes, collages, and typewritten pages. The 2016 English translation by John E. Woods has 1,496 pages and weighs over 13 pounds (5.9 kg)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottom%...

That's published by Dalkey Archive & because it's such a massive project it's very expensive (&, maybe, currently difficult to get). Dalkey, in general, publishes newer European work that some may consider to be experimental.

If by literature you include poetry, you might want to go online to look at this: http://code-poetry.com . This is where things become much more experimental & much more contemporary but it might not be what you're looking for.

flag