A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces

John Kennedy Toole

#133 of 8,085 books · #63 in Fiction

Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1981). Also shortlisted or longlisted for 2 other awards.

A Confederacy of Dunces was named to BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped Our World'. A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern - this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission - and now he has a pirate costume and a hot-dog cart to do it with. Never published during his lifetime, John Kennedy Toole's hilarious satire, A Confederacy of Dunces is a Don Quixote for the modern age.