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 organised into four parts, relating to four major theoretical approaches to the contemporary British novel: realism, postcolonialism, feminism and postmodernism.

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.

Acknowledgements	p. v
Introduction	p. 1
Realism and other -isms
Realism, Dreams and the Unconscious in the Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro	p. 11
Ian McEwan: Contemporary Realism and the Novel of Ideas	p. 23
The Unnatural Scene: The Fiction of Irvine Welsh	p. 35
Angela Carter's Magic Realism	p. 48
Facticity, or Something Like That: The Novels of James Kelman	p. 59
One Nation, Oneself: Politics, Place and Identity in Martin Amis' Fiction	p. 70
Postcolonialism and other -isms
Abdulrazak Gurnah and Hanif Kureishi: Failed Revolutions	p. 85
Salman Rushdie's Fathers	p. 95
Postcolonialism and 'The Figure of the Jew': Caryl Phillips and Zadie Smith	p. 106
Mingling and Metamorphing: Articulations of Feminism and Postcoloniality in Marina Warner's Fiction	p. 118
Feminism and other -isms
Regeneration, Redemption, Resurrection: Pat Barker and the Problem of Evil	p. 131
'Partial to Intensity': the Novels of A. L. Kennedy	p. 142
Gender and Creativity in the Fictions of Janice Galloway	p. 154
Appetite, Desire and Belonging in the Novels of Rose Tremain	p. 165
Desire for Syzygy in the Novels of A. S. Byatt	p. 177
Jeanette Winterson and the Lesbian Postmodern: Story-telling, Performativity and the Gay Aesthetic	p. 189
Postmodernism and other -isms
(Re)Constituted Pasts: Postmodern Historicism in the Novels of Graham Swift and Julian Barnes	p. 203
Colonising the Past: The Novels of Peter Ackroyd	p. 217
Player of Games: Iain (M.) Banks, Jean Francois Lyotard and Sublime Terror	p. 229
Notes on Contributors	p. 240
Index	p. 245
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.