The Contemporary British Novel: Second Edition

(Paperback, 2nd edition)

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Description

The Contemporary British Novel is a lively, wide-ranging guide to the key issues in writing in Britain since the mid-1970s, including social change, gender, sexuality, class, history and ethnicity. Designed to address problems faced by students in the exciting but challenging field of contemporary fiction, the text is organised to focus on major topics including:
- the changing nature of British identity;
- the representation of urban identity and urban spaces;
- class issues including the rise and fall of the middle class;
- multiracial identity and hybridity.

The second edition includes a new introduction and a new chapter on fiction since the millennium focusing on a post 9/11 aesthetic. Every chapter has been revised for the new edition and now includes an initial overview and recommended reading to offer guidance on further study.

Includes readings of novels by:Martin Amis, Pat Barker, A. S. Byatt, Jonathan Coe, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie,Will Self, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson among others.

Reviews

'To set out to write a poetics of the contemporary novel within the edgy category of 'British' is a doubly ambitious project...As well as offering a more integrative view of the the literary phenomenon than most recent companions and readers, it is not uniquely a critical assessment of the writing experience per se, but a forceful attempt at devising adequate tools to capture the new aesthetic of the novel today.' 'The study merits serious attention from scholars of contemporary studies, providing a refreshing blend of creative and critical reading, with its constant capacity for self-renewal.' 'It should be required reading for scholars working in contemporary writing, and it will be excellent supporting material for graduate students.' -- Adriana Neagu, The Journal of the English Association
'Phil Tew is the perfect Virgil to guide readers through the underworld of the contemporary English novel.' - Will Self
'an important contribution to current critical debates on the future of the novel' Professor Patricia Waugh, University of Durham
Mentioned in Contemporary Review, 2008.

Author Bio

Philip Tew is Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) at Brunel University, UK, Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing and Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies. His many publications as both author and editor include Reading Zadie Smith: The First Decade and Beyond (Bloomsbury, 2013) and (co-edited with Emily Horton and Leigh Wilson) The 1980s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2014).