Written by some of the world's finest contemporary literature specialists, the newly commissioned essays in this volume examine the work of more than twenty major British novelists: Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Iain (M.) Banks, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Janice Galloway, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Kelman, A.L. Kennedy, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Caryl Philips, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Marina Warner, Irvine Welsh and Jeanette Winterson. The book will be of interest not only to students, teachers and lecturers, but to the general reader seeking help in approaching the often baffling novels of the recent past. Key Features: *Literary critical 'isms' are described in clear, jargon-free language. *Focuses on British fiction since 1980 giving coverage of established authors such as Angela Carter and Ian McEwan as well as little addressed novelists such as James Kelman and Zadie Smith. *Essays are by leading scholars in contemporary fiction.

Written by some of the world's finest contemporary literature specialists, the specially commissioned essays in this volume examine the work of more than twenty major British novelists: Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Iain (M.) Banks, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Janice Galloway, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Kelman, A.L. Kennedy, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Caryl Phillips, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Marina Warner, Irvine Welsh, and Jeanette Winterson. Focusing largely on authors whose first novels have appeared since 1980, the essays provide expert and original analysis of the most recent trends in the theory and practice of contemporary British fiction. The volume is organized into four parts, relating to four major theoretical approaches to the contemporary British novel: realism, postcolonialism, feminism, and postmodernism.

The fifteen essays in this collection, published here for the first time, survey the work of some of the major British and Irish dramatists since 1960. Included are four dramatists - Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Peter Shaffer and Peter Nichols - who began writing plays before 1960, and whose work since then has continued to develop interestingly. Most of the dramatists considered here, however, are those who have begun writing more recently, and who illustrate some of the distinctive characteristics of British and Irish drama of our time.

This collection of 15 essays surveys the work of some of the most major British and Irish dramatists since 1960. Included are four dramatists - Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Peter Shaffer and Peter Nichols - who began writing plays before 1960, and whose work has since continued to develop. Most of the dramatists considered, however, are those who have begun writing more recently, and who illustrate some of the distinctive characteristics of British and Irish drama of the present.;James Acheson is co-editor of "Beckett's Later Fiction and Drama: Texts for Company" and editor of "The British and Irish Novel since 1960".

The thirteen essays in this collection, published here for the first time, survey the work of some of the most major British and Irish novelists of the past thirty years. Featured in it are several writers - Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch and William Golding, amongst others - who established themselves before 1960, and whose work since then has continued to develop in interesting new ways. Most of the essays, however, deal with novelists who have made their appearence since 1960, and who illustrate some of the distinctive characteristics of British and Irish fiction of the last three decades.;James Acheson is co-editor of "Beckett's Later Fiction and Drama: Texts for Company", and has published essays on Beckett and other modern writers in various edited collections and journals.

The essays in this collection survey the work of some of the most important British and Irish novelists of today. They not only consider afresh the work of novelists who established their reputations before 1960, such as Doris Lessing and William Golding; they also discuss the work of more recent novelists, among them Kazuo Ishiguro, Angela Carter and Graham Swift. The contributors are drawn from various parts of the English-speaking world, and provide a variety of original perspectives on the novelists concerned.

Written by some of the world's finest contemporary literature specialists, the specially commissioned essays in this volume examine the work of more than twenty major British novelists: Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Iain (M.) Banks, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, A. S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Janice Galloway, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, James Kelman, A. L. Kennedy, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Caryl Phillips, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Marina Warner, Irvine Welsh and Jeanette Winterson. Focusing largely on authors whose first novels have appeared since 1980, the essays provide expert and original analysis of the most recent trends in the theory and practice of contemporary British fiction. The volume is organised into four parts, relating to four major theoretical approaches to the contemporary British novel: realism, postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism.

The Contemporary British Novel Since 2000 is divided into five parts, with the first part examining the work of four particularly well-known and highly regarded twenty-first century writers: Ian McEwan, David Mitchell, Hilary Mantel and Zadie Smith. It is with reference to each of these novelists in turn that the terms realist postmodernist, historical and postcolonialist fiction are introduced, while in the remaining four parts, other novelists are discussed and the meaning of the terms amplified. From the start it is emphasised that these terms and others often mean different things to different novelists, and that the complexity of their novels often obliges us to discuss their work with reference to more than one of the terms. Also discusses the works of: Maggie O'Farrell, Sarah Hall, A.L. Kennedy, Alan Warner, Ali Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kate Atkinson, Salman Rushdie, Adam Foulds, Sarah Waters, James Robertson, Mohsin Hamid, Andrea Levy, and Aminatta Forna.

This collection of original essays on Virginia Woolf by leading scholars in the field opens up new debates on the work of one of the foremost modernists of the 20th century. The collection also looks at some of Woolf's own essays, discussing her theory of fiction and devotion to 'stream of consciousness' writing. Its thirteen contributors place this discussion of Woolf's artistic theory and practice within the context of her association with the Bloomsbury Group and her interest in spirituality, feminism, homosexuality, pacifism and psychoanalysis.

The essays in the book analyze cases of cooperation in a wide range of ethnographic, archaeological and evolutionary settings. Cooperation is examined in situations of market exchange, local and long-distance reciprocity, hierarchical relations, common property and commons access, and cooperatives. Not all of these analyses show stable and long-term results of successful cooperation. The increasing cooperation that is so highly characteristic of our species over the long term obviously has replaced neither competition in the short term nor hierarchical structures that reduce competition in the mid term. Interactions based on strategies of cooperation, competition, and hierarchy are all found, simultaneously, in human social relations.