How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1990s shape Contemporary British Fiction? From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the turn of the millennium, the 1990s witnessed a realignment of global politics. Against the changing international scene, this volume uses events abroad and in Britain to examine and explain the changes taking place in British fiction: the celebration of national identities, fuelled by the move toward political devolution in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; the rise of misery memoirs and autobiographies tied to the shifting concepts of grief and mourning; the literary optimism in urban ethnic fictions written by a new generation of authors, born and raised in Britain and the popularity of neo-Victorian fiction. Critical surveys are balanced by in-depth readings of work by the authors who defined the decade, including A.S. Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, A.L. Kennedy, Caryl Phillips and Irvine Welsh: an approach that illustrates exactly how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade.

James Thomson's epic poem The City Of Dreadful Night first appeared in 1874 and acheived in its day some fame and was read by many, but in the decades that followed the poem and the poet sank into obscurity, becoming known only to a few. Thomson's poem is a deeply questioning and extremely dark vision of the City that we inhabit, but more than that it challenges the illusions that inhabit us. Thomson - athiest, alcoholic, anarchist and insomniac - speaks to us all frm the place where we live. This new edition is illustrated with eight drawings by Clifford Harper, and will hopefully help give the poem a new audience, and a new fame. Includes a critical biography of Thomson and his work by Dr Philip Tew. Agraphia is Harper's own publishing imprint, and as you'd expect, the books are exquisitely designed, illustrated and printed.

Jim Crace is one of the most imaginative of contemporary novelists. The author of nine novels, he has received great public and intellectual acclaim across the UK, Europe, Australia and the United States. He was awarded the National Book Critics' Circle Fiction prize (USA) for Being Dead in 2000. Philip Tew's study is the first extended critical examination of Crace's oeuvre and is based on extensive interviews with the novelist, including discussions of his work from his first worldwide bestseller Continent (1986) up to The Pesthouse (2007). Designed especially both for undergraduates of contemporary fiction, and for those who simply enjoy reading the author, Jim Crace is an excellent addition to the Contemporary British Novelists series. Tew's treatment of themes, contexts and narrative strategies illuminates the literary and critical contexts within which Crace operates, situating him as one of the most adventurous and challenging of Britain's twenty-first century authors. -- .

This volume relates the British fiction of the decade to the contexts in which it was written and received in order to examine and explain contemporary trends, such as the rise of a new working-class fiction, the ongoing development of separate national literatures of Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and shifts in modes of attention and reading. From the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crash to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, the 2010s have been a decade of an ongoing crisis which has penetrated every area of everyday life. Internationally, there has been an ongoing shift of global power from the US to China, and events and developments such as the election of Donald Trump as US President, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise of the populist right across Europe and very gradually the incipient effects variously of AI. Nationally, there has been a decade of austerity economics punctuated by divisive referendums on Scottish independence and whether Britain should leave or remain in the EU. Balancing critical surveys with in-depth readings of work by authors who have helped define this turbulent decade, including Nicola Barker, Anna Burns, Jonathan Coe, Alys Conran, Bernadine Evaristo, Mohsin Hamid, James Kelman, James Robertson, Kamila Shamsie, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith and Adam Thirlwell, among others, this volume illustrates exactly how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade.

How did social, cultural and political events concerning Britain during the 1940s reshape modern British fiction? During the Second World War and in its aftermath, British literature experienced and recorded drastic and decisive changes to old certainties. Moving from potential invasion and defeat to victory, the creation of the welfare state and a new Cold war threat, the pace of historical change seemed too rapid and monumental for writers to match. Consequently the 1940s were often side-lined in literary accounts as a dividing line between periods and styles. Drawing on more recent scholarship and research, this volume surveys and analyses this period's fascinating diversity, from novels of the Blitz and the Navy to the rise of important new voices with its contributors exploring the work of influential women, Commonwealth, exiled, genre, avant-garde and queer writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the intriguing decade, this book offers substantial chapters on Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, and George Orwell as well as covering such writers as Jocelyn Brooke, Monica Dickens, James Hadley Chase, Patrick Hamilton, Gerald Kersh, Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Renault, Denton Welch and many others.

Jim Crace is one of the most imaginative of contemporary novelists. The author of nine novels, he has received great public and intellectual acclaim across the UK, Europe, Australia and the United States. He was awarded the National Book Critics' Circle Fiction prize (USA) for Being Dead in 2000. Philip Tew's study is the first extended critical examination of Crace's oeuvre and is based on extensive interviews with the novelist, including discussions of his work from his first worldwide bestseller Continent (1986) up to The Pesthouse (2007). Designed especially both for undergraduates of contemporary fiction, and for those who simply enjoy reading the author, Jim Crace is an excellent addition to the Contemporary British Novelists series. Tew's treatment of themes, contexts and narrative strategies illuminates the literary and critical contexts within which Crace operates, situating him as one of the most adventurous and challenging of Britain's twenty-first century authors. -- .

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during and leading up to the 1960s shape modern British fiction? The 1960s were the "swinging decade": a newly energised youth culture went hand-in-hand with new technologies, expanding educational opportunities, new social attitudes and profound political differences between the generations. This volume explores the ways in which these apparently seismic changes were reflected in British fiction of the decade. Chapters cover feminist writing that fused the personal and the political, gay, lesbian and immigrant voices and the work of visionary experimental and science fiction writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the decade, this volume covers such writers as J.G. Ballard, Anthony Burgess, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, John Fowles, Christopher Isherwood, Doris Lessing, Michael Moorcock and V.S. Naipaul.

The combined effect of the welfare state and medical advances means that more people now live longer lives than ever before in history. As a consequence, the experience of ageing has been transformed. Yet our cultural and social perceptions of ageing remain governed by increasingly dated images and narratives. Growing Old with the Welfare State challenges these stereotypes by bringing together eight previously unpublished stories of ordinary British people born between 1925 and 1945 to show contemporary ageing in a new light. These biographical narratives, six of which were written as part of the Mass Observation Project, reflect on and compare the experience of living in two post-war periods of social change, after the first and second world wars. In doing so, these stories, along with their accompanying contextual chapters, provide a valuable and accessible resource for social historians, and expose both historical and contemporary views of age and ageing that challenge modern assumptions.

The combined effect of the welfare state and medical advances means that more people now live longer lives than ever before in history. As a consequence, the experience of ageing has been transformed. Yet our cultural and social perceptions of ageing remain governed by increasingly dated images and narratives. Growing Old with the Welfare State challenges these stereotypes by bringing together eight previously unpublished stories of ordinary British people born between 1925 and 1945 to show contemporary ageing in a new light. These biographical narratives, six of which were written as part of the Mass Observation Project, reflect on and compare the experience of living in two post-war periods of social change, after the first and second world wars. In doing so, these stories, along with their accompanying contextual chapters, provide a valuable and accessible resource for social historians, and expose both historical and contemporary views of age and ageing that challenge modern assumptions.

In novels such as What A Carve Up! and The Rotters' Club, Jonathan Coe has established himself as one of the great satirical writers of our time. Covering all of his major novels, including his most recent book Number 11, Jonathan Coe: Contemporary British Satire includes chapters by leading and emerging scholars of contemporary British writing. The book features a preface by Coe himself and covers the ways in which his work grapples with such themes as class politics, popular music, sex, gender and the media.

Contemporary writers such as Peter Ackroyd, J.G. Ballard, John King, Ian McEwan, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Zadie Smith have been registering the changes to the social and cultural London landscape for years. This volume brings together their vivid representations of the capital. Uniting the readings are themes such as relationship between the country and the city; the capacity of satirical forms to encompass the 'real London'; spatio-temporal transformations and emergences; the relationship between multiculturalism and universalism; the underground as the spatial equivalent of London's unconsciousness and the suburbs as the frontier of the future. The volume creates a framework for new approaches to the representation of London required by the unprecedented social uncertainties of recent years: an invaluable contribution to studies of contemporary writing about London.

Contemporary writers such as Peter Ackroyd, J.G. Ballard, John King, Ian McEwan, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Zadie Smith have been registering the changes to the social and cultural London landscape for years. This volume brings together their vivid representations of the capital. Uniting the readings are themes such as relationship between the country and the city; the capacity of satirical forms to encompass the 'real London'; spatio-temporal transformations and emergences; the relationship between multiculturalism and universalism; the underground as the spatial equivalent of London's unconsciousness and the suburbs as the frontier of the future. The volume creates a framework for new approaches to the representation of London required by the unprecedented social uncertainties of recent years: an invaluable contribution to studies of contemporary writing about London.

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1980s shape contemporary British fiction? Setting the fiction squarely within the context of Conservative politics and questions about culture and national identity, this volume reveals how the decade associated with Thatcherism frames the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, and Graham Swift, of Scottish novelists and new diasporic writers. How and why 1980s fiction is a response to particular psychological, social and economic pressures is explored in detail. Drawing on the rise of individualism and the birth of neo-liberalism, contributors reflect on the tense relations between 1980s politics and realism, and between elegy and satire. Noting the creation of a 'heritage industry' during the decade, the rise of the historical novel is also considered against broader cultural changes. Viewed from the perspective of more recent theorisations of crisis following both 9/11 and the 21st-century financial crash, this study makes sense of why and how writers of the 1980s constructed fictions in response to this decade's own set of fundamental crises.

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1970s shape Contemporary British Fiction? Exploring the impact of events like the Cold War, miners' strikes and Winter of Discontent, this volume charts the transition of British fiction from post-war to contemporary. Chapters outline the decade's diversity of writing, showing how the literature of Ian McEwan and Ian Sinclair interacted with the experimental work of B.S. Johnson. Close contextual readings of Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and English novels map the steady break-up of Britain. Tying the popularity of Angela Carter and Fay Weldon to the growth of the Women's Liberation Movement and calling attention to a new interest in documentary modes of autobiographical writing, this volume also examines the rising resonance of the marginal voices: the world of 1970s British Feminist fiction and postcolonial and diasporic writers. Against a backdrop of social tensions, this major critical reassessment of the 1970s defines, explores and better understands the criticism and fiction of a decade marked by the sense of endings.

Since the publication of White Teeth in 2000, Zadie Smith has become one of the most popular contemporary writers and also one of the mostly widely studied. Taking criticism of Smith's work beyond its traditional focus on postcolonialism and multicultural identity, Reading Zadie Smith brings together leading international scholars to open up new directions in criticism of Smith's work. Covering such key topics as posthumanism, 'hysterical realism', religion, identity and ethics, this book brings together a full range of current critical perspectives to explore not only Smith's novels but also her short stories, her criticism and her non-fiction writing.

Since the publication of White Teeth in 2000, Zadie Smith has become one of the most popular contemporary writers and also one of the mostly widely studied. Taking criticism of Smith's work beyond its traditional focus on postcolonialism and multicultural identity, Reading Zadie Smith brings together leading international scholars to open up new directions in criticism of Smith's work. Covering such key topics as posthumanism, 'hysterical realism', religion, identity and ethics, this book brings together a full range of current critical perspectives to explore not only Smith's novels but also her short stories, her criticism and her non-fiction writing.

Death is indisputably central to Beckett's writing and reception. This collection of research considers a number of Beckett's poems, novels, plays and short stories through considerations of mortality and death. Chapters explore the theme of deathliness in relation to Beckett's work as a whole, through three main approaches. The first of these situates Beckett's thinking about death in his own writing and reading processes, particularly with respect to manuscript drafts and letters. The second on the death of the subject in Beckett links dominant 'poststructural' readings of Beckett's writing to the textual challenge exemplified by the The Unnamable. A final approach explores psychology and death, with emphasis on deathly states like catatonia and Cotard's Syndrome that recur in Beckett's work. Beckett and Death offers a range of cutting-edge approaches to the trope of mortality, and a unique insight into the relationship of this theme to all aspects of Beckett's literature.

This is a collection of research by leading international scholars on Beckett, as well as younger academics, analyses a number of Beckett's poems, plays and short stories through consideration of mortality and death. Death is indisputably central to Beckett's writing and reception. This collection of research considers a number of Beckett's poems, novels, plays and short stories through considerations of mortality and death. Chapters explore the theme of deathliness in relation to Beckett's work as a whole, through three main approaches. The first of these situates Beckett's thinking about death in his own writing and reading processes, particularly with respect to manuscript drafts and letters. The second on the death of the subject in Beckett links dominant 'poststructural' readings of Beckett's writing to the textual challenge exemplified by the "The Unnamable". A final approach explores psychology and death, with emphasis on deathly states like catatonia and Cotard's Syndrome that recur in Beckett's work. "Beckett and Death" offers a range of cutting-edge approaches to the trope of mortality, and a unique insight into the relationship of this theme to all aspects of Beckett's literature.

This is a one-stop resource containing introductory material through to practical case studies in reading primary and secondary texts to introducing criticism and new directions in research."The Modernism Handbook" is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to British Modernism as a literary movement, providing a one-stop resource for literature students, with the essential information and guidance needed at the beginning of a course through to developing more advanced knowledge and skills. It includes: introductions to authors, texts and contexts; guides to key critics, concepts and topics; an overview of major critical approaches, changes in the canon and directions of current and future research; case studies in reading primary and secondary texts; and annotated further reading (including websites), timeline, glossary of critical terms.Written in clear language by leading academics, it is an indispensable starting point for anyone beginning their study of Modernism."Literature and Culture Handbooks" are an innovative series of guides to major periods, topics and authors in British and American literature and culture. Designed to provide a comprehensive, one-stop resource for literature students, each handbook provides the essential information and guidance needed from the beginning of a course through to developing more advanced knowledge and skills.

This is a collection of interviews with contemporary British novelists offering a fascinating insight into bestselling authors' views on fiction today.Why do writers write? How do they react to criticism of their work? What inspires them and how do they work? Does fiction have any political, ethical or spiritual significance? Can we learn more about a book from its author? This collection of interviews with contemporary British novelists offers a fascinating insight into bestselling authors' views on fiction today; their influences and themes; readers and critics; why they write and their writing process; and provides a snapshot of the reality of living as a writer. Revealing the hopes, fears, beliefs and ambitions of leading authors, "Writers Talk" is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary literature or the nature of the writing process."Writers Talk" includes interviews with Kate Atkinson, Pat Barker, Jonathan Coe, Jim Crace, Toby Litt, David Mitchell, Will Self, Graham Swift, Matt Thorne and Alan Warner.

The Contemporary British Novel is a lively, wide-ranging, lucid guide to the key issues in writing in Britain since the mis-1970's, including social change, urban identity, and history and its relationship with the present. Philip Tew provides close readings of key works by a wide range of interesting writers, including both canonical figures and writers neglected in traditional surveys. He argues that contemporary writing should be studied in its own right rather than simply as a continuation of post-war trends and provides a fresh analysis of recent fiction and its historical and cultural contexts in contemporary Britain. Philip Tew is Reader in English and Aesthetics, University of Central England, Birmingham. He is founding Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies. His publications include B.S. Johnson: A Critical Reading (2001) and Contemporary British Fiction (edited with Rod Mengham and Richard Lane, 2003).

"British Fiction Today" provides students and readers with a critical introduction to key authors and novels since 1990 through a collection of the latest critical perspectives on current British fiction. It offers comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of a broad range of selected contemporary authors, drawing together both established and emerging literary voices reflecting the scope of the new British writing. Organised around key themes in contemporary writing - Modern Lives, Contemporary Living; Distortions and Dreams; States of Identity and Histories, each section begins with a short introductory essay. Each section includes newly commissioned essays by leading critics on: Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, A. S. Byatt, Jonathan Coe, Jenny Diski, Alan Hollinghurst, Toby Litt, Ian McEwan, Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Adam Thorpe, Sarah Waters, and Jeanette Winterson. Introducing key works, writers and major themes including post-colonialism, gender and history, "British Fiction Today" is the ideal guide to the contemporary literary scene for students and readers.

How did social, cultural and political events concerning Britain during the 1940s reshape modern British fiction? During the Second World War and in its aftermath, British literature experienced and recorded drastic and decisive changes to old certainties. Moving from potential invasion and defeat to victory, the creation of the welfare state and a new Cold war threat, the pace of historical change seemed too rapid and monumental for writers to match. Consequently the 1940s were often side-lined in literary accounts as a dividing line between periods and styles. Drawing on more recent scholarship and research, this volume surveys and analyses this period’s fascinating diversity, from novels of the Blitz and the Navy to the rise of important new voices with its contributors exploring the work of influential women, Commonwealth, exiled, genre, avant-garde and queer writers. A major critical re-evaluation of the intriguing decade, this book offers substantial chapters on Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, and George Orwell as well as covering such writers as Jocelyn Brooke, Monica Dickens, James Hadley Chase, Patrick Hamilton, Gerald Kersh, Daphne Du Maurier, Mary Renault, Denton Welch and many others.

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1990s shape contemporary British Fiction? From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the turn of the millennium, the 1990s witnessed a realignment of global politics. Against the changing international scene, this volume uses events abroad and in Britain to examine and explain the changes taking place in British fiction, including: the celebration of national identities, fuelled by the move toward political devolution in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; the literary optimism in urban ethnic fictions written by a new generation of authors, born and raised in Britain; the popularity of neo-Victorian fiction. Critical surveys are balanced by in-depth readings of work by the authors who defined the decade, including A.S. Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Will Self, Caryl Phillips and Irvine Welsh: an approach that illustrates exactly how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade.

Moving beyond a survey approach, this collection explores British fiction's place among the cultural shifts and headline events of four distinctive decades. From the collapse of communism, through the rise of Thatcher to the shifts in global power, each volume evaluates the impact of social, cultural and political history on the fiction of the respective period. Breaking British fiction into its four constituent decades, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and the 2000s and using social, cultural and political contexts to understand its chronology means changing literary themes are properly accounted for and traditional readings opened up. Alongside the national reception, the series looks closely at how British fiction has been received internationally. Approaching the subject from the perspective of its disciplinary formation, The Decades Series is a crucial reference point for the progressive development of contemporary British fiction, not only a literary and cultural phenomenon, but as an academic field.