If neither ‘grand narratives’ nor ‘micro-histories’ were possible as the last decade of the twentieth century began, what was contemporary fiction going to do? The repercussions of a past that would not pass were carving out a broad bay in which historical, non-fictional and literary writing washed in and around one another. But what of a future struggling to begin? A future that felt blocked or stalled by this backwash. That could be neither prophecy nor consequence. Does the writing of fiction have anything specific or constitutive to offer in a context where, as Jean-Luc Nancy suggests, the drive of plot, of narrative or récit, appears to lead perpetually to the same impasse, the same foreclosure of the century on its disasters? What sort of new rhythms of writing, new phrasings and propulsions is he calling for as a means of creating lateral movement?