Critical Perspectives on Pat Barker brings together an international roster of scholars who pay detailed attention to the work and career of this prizewinning British writer, providing critical insight into each of her nine novels, from Union Street (1982) through the Regeneration trilogy (1991-95) to Double Vision (2003). The eighteen essays in the volume are organized into five sections: ""Writing Working-Class Women,"" ""Dialogue under Pressure,"" ""Men at War,"" ""The Talking Cure,"" and ""Regenerating the Wasteland."" Taken individually, each of the essays yields a variety of insights into Barker's fictions; taken as a whole, the collection provides a fresh and timely overview of Barker's oeuvre and her creative exploration of society. The volume probes Barker's keenly historicized and yet topical preoccupations: the social and psychological ramifications of planned violence in war and random violence in British villages and cities, and the comforts and tensions in relationships, whether between men in war, women in postindustrial cities, or men and women in sex and marriage. The volume also dissects Barker's unflinching gaze on class, sex, murder, and psychosis, and her provocative and emotionally moving images. It includes an interview with the novelist, incorporates her observations on writing her most recent novel, Double Vision, in the aftermath of wars in Bosnia and Iraq, and explores the film adaptation of Regeneration. The volume also presents Sarah Daniels's dramatic adaptation of Barker's novel Blow Your House Down, which has been staged but has not previously appeared in print.

This literary study is an exploration and a celebration of a writer who for the last half century has been at the forefront of modern African writing. Since the publication of Things Fall Apart in 1958, Chinua Achebe has been credited with being the key progenitor of an African literary tradition and his five novels read as tracing the national narrative of Nigeria. Achebe depicts precolonial societies disturbed by British colonization, in the 1890s and the 1930s, the dog days of colonization in the 1950s, Independence in 1960 and the onset of neo-colonial problems of corruption and civil war and, in his final novel, Anthills of the Savannah (1987), the pervasive sense of postcolonial disenchantment. This study casts back over Achebe's writing career to assess his considerable contribution to postcolonial writing and criticism, including his Editorship of Heinemann's acclaimed African Writers Series which has shaped African literature for international audiences since 1962. Yousaf's examination of Achebe's fiction is carefully counterpointed with detailed discussion of the Nigerian national situation and of Achebe's essays and criticism - including his most recent and most autobiographical collection Home and Exile (2000) published in the year the writer celebrated his seventieth birthday.

This literary study is an exploration and a celebration of a writer who for the last half century has been at the forefront of modern African writing. Since the publication of Things Fall Apart in 1958, Chinua Achebe has been credited with being the key progenitor of an African literary tradition and his five novels read as tracing the national narrative of Nigeria. Achebe depicts precolonial societies disturbed by British colonization, in the 1890s and the 1930s, the dog days of colonization in the 1950s, Independence in 1960 and the onset of neo-colonial problems of corruption and civil war and, in his final novel, Anthills of the Savannah (1987), the pervasive sense of postcolonial disenchantment. This study casts back over Achebe’s writing career to assess his considerable contribution to postcolonial writing and criticism, including his Editorship of Heinemann’s acclaimed African Writers Series which has shaped African literature for international audiences since 1962. Yousaf’s examination of Achebe’s fiction is carefully counterpointed with detailed discussion of the Nigerian national situation and of Achebe’s essays and criticism – including his most recent and most autobiographical collection Home and Exile (2000) published in the year the writer celebrated his seventieth birthday.

The "Continuum Contemporaries" series is designed to be a source of ideas and inspiration for members of book clubs and reading groups, as well as for literature students at school, college and university. The series aims to give readers accessible and informative introductions to 30 of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. The books in the series all follow the same structure, which features: a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the important themes and ideas; summaries of how the novel was received upon publication and how it has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations and literary prizes; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites; and a list of questions for reading groups or students to discuss.

This New Casebook explores the enduring significance of George Eliot's novels The Mill on the Floss (1860) and Silas Marner (1861). Eliot's radical cultural politics and the arrestingly original fictional strategies that characterise two of her most popular novels are explored from a variety of perspectives - feminist, historicist, structuralist and psychoanalytic.