Abstract: Brian Richardson is Professor of English at University of Maryland, the former president of both the International Society for the Study of Narrative and the Joseph Conrad Society of America, and founder of unnatural narratology. He is a major scholar in the fields of twentieth century literature, poetics of modern drama and narrative theory, and his most recent book is Unnatural Narrative: Theory, History, and Practice (2015). In December 2016, Ph.D. candidate of Huazhong University of Science and Technology Li Minrui, a visiting scholar at University of Maryland from Huazhong Agricultural University, China, entrusted by Foreign Literature Studies, interviewed Professor Richardson face to face. This interview centers chiefly on the new model of unnatural narratology and its new trend. After illustrating the pertinent core concepts and basic terms on unnatural narratology, the interview also involves the relations between the unnatural narratology and contemporary literary criticism, in particular, the roles the unnatural narratology plays in pursuit of ethical, political and ideological concerns. In the end, the interview looks forward to the situation of literary criticism after postmodernism, and meanwhile explores the prospective development of unnatural narratology in the future.

Key words: unnatural narratology, contemporary literary criticism, Brian Richardson