What does the novel allow us to do? Moreover, how does it allow us think? How might it promise more than mere representation by grappling with what we must contend with in life: estrangement, alienation, contradiction and discontinuities – just to name a few. The contributions in this issue critically engage with such ambiguities, proposing that the novel and, indeed, the author, offer something to the modern reader. The novel as a site of meditation allows us to think (and re-think) the world we live in, that others have lived in and to tease out possibilities for a future. The novel has never really been renowned for its ‘usefulness’ and sometimes, much like in Brechtian fashion, has been undertaken as a practice in its own right – the very act of writing and reading is a participation, a praxis with the injunction to ‘delight’ and, perhaps, conquer some of the outdated respectabilities of the past.