The Contemporary British Novel Since 1980

by Acheson, James; Ross, Sarah C.E.

• ISBN13: 9781403974297
• ISBN10: 1403974292
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-03-16
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

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: 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 Phillips, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain, Marina Warner, Irvine Welsh, and Jeanette Winterson. Focusing largely 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. The volume is organized into four parts, relating to four major theoretical approaches to the contemporary British novel: realism, postcolonialism, feminism, and postmodernism.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	v
Introduction	1	(10)
James Acheson and Sarah C.E. Ross
Part I: Realism and other -isms
1 Realism, Dreams and the Unconscious in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro	11	(12)
Frederick M. Holmes
2 Ian McEwan: Contemporary Realism and the Novel of Ideas	23	(12)
Judith Seaboyer
3 The Unnatural Scene: The Fiction of Irvine Welsh	35	(13)
Alan Riach
4 Angela Carter's Magic Realism	48	(11)
David Punter
5 Facticity, or Something Like That: The Novels of James Kelman	59	(11)
Laurence Nicoll
6 One Nation, Oneself: Politics, Place and Identity in Martin Amis' Fiction	70	(15)
Daniel Lea
Part II: Postcolonialism and other -isms
7 Abdulrazak Gurnah and Hanif Kureishi: Failed Revolutions	85	(10)
Bruce King
8 Salman Rushdie's Fathers	95	(11)
Hermione Lee
9 Postcolonialism and 'The Figure of the Jew': Caryl Phillips and Zadie Smith	106	(12)
Bart Moore-Gilbert
10 Mingling and Metamorphing: Articulations of Feminism and Postcoloniality in Marina Warner's Fiction	118	(13)
Chantal Zabus
Part III: Feminism and other -isms
11 Regeneration, Redemption, Resurrection: Pat Barker and the Problem of Evil	131	(11)
Sarah C.E. Ross
12 'Partial to Intensity': the Novels of A.L. Kennedy	142	(12)
Glenda Norquay
13 Gender and Creativity in the Fictions of Janice Galloway	154	(11)
Dorothy McMillan
14 Appetite, Desire and Belonging in the Novels of Rose Tremain	165	(12)
Sarah Sceats
15 Desire for Syzygy in the Novels of A.S. Byatt	177	(12)
Katherine Tarbox
16 Jeanette Winterson and the Lesbian Postmodern: Story-telling, Performativity and the Gay Aesthetic	189	(14)
Paulina Palmer
Part IV: Postmodernism and other -isms
17 (Re)Constituted Pasts: Postmodern Historicism in the Novels of Graham Swift and Julian Barnes	203	(14)
Daniel Bedggood
18 Colonising the Past: The Novels of Peter Acktoyci	217	(12)
David Leon Higdon
19 Player of Games: Iain (M.) Banks, Jean François Lyotard and Sublime Terror	229	(11)
Cairns Craig
Notes on Contributors	240	(5)
Index	245

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