The Contemporary British Novel Since 1980

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-v

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • James Acheson, Sarah C. E. Ross

      Pages 1-8

3. Realism and other -isms

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

      PDF

   2. Realism, Dreams and the Unconscious in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro

      • Frederick M. Holmes

      Pages 11-22

   3. Ian McEwan: Contemporary Realism and the Novel of Ideas

      • Judith Seaboyer

      Pages 23-34

   4. The Unnatural Scene: The Fiction of Irvine Welsh

      • Alan Riach

      Pages 35-47

   5. Angela Carter’s Magic Realism

      • David Punter

      Pages 48-58

   6. Facticity, or Something Like That: The Novels of James Kelman

      • Laurence Nicoll

      Pages 59-69

   7. One Nation, Oneself: Politics, Place and Identity in Martin Amis’ Fiction

      • Daniel Lea

      Pages 70-81

4. Postcolonialism and other -isms

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 83-83

      PDF

   2. Abdulrazak Gurnah and Hanif Kureishi: Failed Revolutions

      • Bruce King

      Pages 85-94

   3. Salman Rushdie’s Fathers

      • Hermione Lee

      Pages 95-105

   4. Postcolonialism and ‘The Figure of the Jew’: Caryl Phillips and Zadie Smith

      • Bart Moore-Gilbert

      Pages 106-117

   5. Mingling and Metamorphing: Articulations of Feminism and Postcoloniality in Marina Warner’s Fiction

      • Chantal Zabus

      Pages 118-128

5. Feminism and other -isms

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

      PDF

   2. Regeneration, Redemption, Resurrection: Pat Barker and the Problem of Evil

      • Sarah C. E. Ross

      Pages 131-141

   3. ‘Partial to Intensity’: The Novels of A. L. Kennedy

      • Glenda Norquay

      Pages 142-153

   4. Gender and Creativity in the Fictions of Janice Galloway

      • Dorothy McMillan

      Pages 154-164

   5. Appetite, Desire and Belonging in the Novels of Rose Tremain

      • Sarah Sceats

      Pages 165-176

   6. Desire for Syzygy in the Novels of A. S. Byatt

      • Katherine Tarbox

      Pages 177-188

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, including Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Iain (M.) Banks, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Janice Galloway, Kazuo Ishiguro, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Marina Warner, Irvine Welsh and Jeanette Winterson. Focusing mainly 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, and are organized by these 4 major approaches: realism, postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism.

• British novel
• English literature
• fiction
• novel
• postmodernism
• realism
• Research in English and American Literature
• British and Irish Literature

JAMES ACHESON is former Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He is author of Samuel Beckett's Artistic Theory and Practice: Criticism, Drama, Early Fiction and John Fowles.

SARAH C. E. ROSS is a Lecturer in English at Massey University, New Zealand, where she teaches Medieval and Renaissance Literature and Contemporary Fiction.

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