The essay “Discourse in the Novel” discusses that the novel is constituted by a multiplicity of divergent and contending social voices. Who is the author of this essay?

The correct option is Mikhail Bakhtin.

“Discourse in the Novel” is one of the most influential essays written by the Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. Written in the 1930s and later published in the English collection The Dialogic Imagination (1981), the essay introduces several of Bakhtin's core concepts concerning the nature of language and narrative form.

In this essay, Bakhtin argues that the novel is a distinct literary genre because of its inherent internal stratification. Unlike poetic genres, which he characterizes as monologic, the novel is defined by heteroglossia—the presence of a multiplicity of divergent, contending, and socially situated voices, dialects, and discourses that engage in a constant dialogic interaction. Therefore, Mikhail Bakhtin is the author of this seminal work.