Contemporary British Novel

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.

I applaud the content and organisation of this ambitious collection. The editors have solicited essays from a wide range of world-class scholars, all of whom have provided orginal critiques of a wide variety of contemporary novels. -- Professor Suzette Henke, Department of English, University of Louisville This challenging collection of original essays by a distinguished group of international scholars breaks new ground in situating major contemporary British novelists in their respective postcolonial, postmodern, feminist and realist contexts. -- Professor John Fletcher, Emeritus Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of East Anglia I applaud the content and organisation of this ambitious collection. The editors have solicited essays from a wide range of world-class scholars, all of whom have provided orginal critiques of a wide variety of contemporary novels. This challenging collection of original essays by a distinguished group of international scholars breaks new ground in situating major contemporary British novelists in their respective postcolonial, postmodern, feminist and realist contexts.

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, and is either editor or co-editor of Beckett's Later Fiction and Drama: Texts for Company; The British and Irish Novel Since 1960; British and Irish Drama Since 1960; and Contemporary British Poetry: Essays in Theory and Criticism. Currently he is writing a book on contemporary British historical fiction. Sarah Ross is a Lecturer in English at Massey University, New Zealand, where she teaches Medieval and Renaissance literature and contemporary fiction. She has published in the fields of early modern women's writing and manuscript culture, and has contributed to the publications of the Perdita Project and the John Nichols Project (University of Warwick). Her interests in feminism and historicism run through her work in the early modern and contemporary periods.