Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-century Literatures in English

An imaginatively constructed new literary history of the twentieth century. This companion with a difference sets a controversial new agenda for literary -historical analysis. Far from the usual forced march through the decades, genres and national literatures, this reference work for the new century cuts across familiar categories, focusing instead on literary 'hot spots': Freud's Vienna and Conrad's Congo in 1899, Chicago and London in 1912, the Somme in July 1916, Dublin, London and Harlem in 1922, and so on, down to Bradford and Berlin in 1989 (the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the new digital media), Stockholm in 1993 (Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize) and September 11, 2001. The Companion * reanimates twentieth-century literary history * gives unique insight into the literary imagination via the focus on pivotal times and places * provides an unprecedented view of literatures in English in global contexts from Berlin to Bradford, Florence to Flanders, Lagos to Liverpool, Madrid to Melbourne, and San Francisco to Stockholm * offers illuminating analyses of authors and texts from across the century * brings together expert contributors from around the world.

The moment for this book is absolutely perfect... It instructs both by its programmatic statements and by the success of its examples. The book stands to make a genuinely outstanding contribution. -- Bruce Robbins, Department of English, Columbia University This intriguing and informative book rides the updraught provided by the continuing popularity of guides and companions, but also performs some surprising and fascinating new mid-air manoeuvres with the form. The ... reshuffling of the literary-historical deck in this volume is refreshing and illuminating for student readers too. -- Steven Connor, School of English and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London Contentious and bold ... the volume articulates a new framework for thinking about literary history and the subject of English, befitting the radicalist and reformist purport of the literary project in the innovation-driven, criss-crossing of the 'street of the twentieth century'. English McHale and Randall Stevenson have assembled fascinating essays focusing on the intersections between dates, places, events, and literature ... They succeed in providing a fresh view not often found in companions ... This collection of thought-provoking essays will be indispensable to students of literature. -- M.L.Jackson, University of Alabama Choice Readers wishing to explore the literature, cultural movements and history of the period will find much to stimulate and even surprise them in this book... -- Reference Reviews The moment for this book is absolutely perfect... It instructs both by its programmatic statements and by the success of its examples. The book stands to make a genuinely outstanding contribution. This intriguing and informative book rides the updraught provided by the continuing popularity of guides and companions, but also performs some surprising and fascinating new mid-air manoeuvres with the form. The ... reshuffling of the literary-historical deck in this volume is refreshing and illuminating for student readers too. Contentious and bold ... the volume articulates a new framework for thinking about literary history and the subject of English, befitting the radicalist and reformist purport of the literary project in the innovation-driven, criss-crossing of the 'street of the twentieth century'. McHale and Randall Stevenson have assembled fascinating essays focusing on the intersections between dates, places, events, and literature ... They succeed in providing a fresh view not often found in companions ... This collection of thought-provoking essays will be indispensable to students of literature. Readers wishing to explore the literature, cultural movements and history of the period will find much to stimulate and even surprise them in this book...

Brian McHale is Distinguished Humanities Professor in English at the Ohio State University. He is the author of Postmodernist Fiction (1987), Constructing Postmodernism (1992), and The Obligation toward the Difficult Whole: Postmodernist Long Poems (2004), named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2004. For many years affiliated with the Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics at Tel Aviv University, he was an editor of the journal Poetics Today from 1979 to 2004. Randall Stevenson is Professor of Twentieth-Century Literature. Major publications include Modernist Fiction (1998); The Oxford English Literary History vol.12, 1960-2000: The Last of England? (2004); and The Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Literatures in English (2006). He is also General Editor of the forthcoming Edinburgh History of Twentieth-Century Literature in Britain.