Between Sound and Text: Production, Content and Experiences of Multimodal Audio Literature
Audiobooks are transforming literature. They are not only changing the ways we read, but also influencing how books are written and produced, thereby reshaping literary form and content. As audiobooks have grown in popularity, publishers and other producers have begun creating works that experiment with the audio format, either as audio adaptations of printed literary works or as literary texts written specifically for audio…
The research project “Between Sound and Text” focuses on this category of works, which we refer to as audio literature. These works exploit the possibilities of the audiobook format by combining verbal text with music, sound effects, and voice dramatization. In doing so, they challenge established ideas and conventions about what literature is, or should be. The aim of the project is to understand how the audiobook format is transforming or challenging established concepts of literature and contemporary literary culture. We investigate the relationship between text and sound, examining how this relationship shapes the aesthetic qualities of selected works, as well as the production and experience of literature.
Existing audiobook research has focused primarily on audiobook consumption, and audiobooks are often associated with accessible popular fiction. Through a qualitative study of multimodal audio literature, we seek to complicate this established view of the audiobook by exploring how developments in production, content, and consumption are interconnected. The project adopts an interdisciplinary approach, combining theoretical perspectives and methods from publishing studies and book studies, literary studies, sound studies, and media studies. The project is particularly timely because audiobook production in Scandinavia is currently undergoing a period of transition, marked by experimentation with new narrative forms and new relationships between sound and text. It therefore contributes valuable insights into how the audiobook format gives rise to new production strategies, new aesthetic practices, and new literary experiences that exist “between sound and text.”
The project is led by Sara Tanderup Linkis and funded by the Swedish Research Council, 2024-2027.
