“Four Legs in the Evening”: Postanimal Narration in Adam Roberts’ Bête (2014)

In this article, I argue that Adam Roberts’ Bête (2014) requires a refinement of the category of ‘nonhuman narration,’ as its transspecies narrator’s body evades conventional categories. I conceive her cyborg-like, nonhuman-technology/human hybrid being as ‘postanimal’―a signifier setting aside a cemented human-animal divide. Hence emerging at the intersection of econarratological and critical animal studies scholarship, my argument works towards a ‘postanimalist’ mode of critique (Stanescu and Twine). Portraying how this ‘postanimal narration’ puts the anthropomorphic bias of narrative on display, I question whether a ‘postanimalist’ rather than a post-anthropocentric narrative stance is achieved.