London in Contemporary British Fiction: The City Beyond the City

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Description

Contemporary writers such as Peter Ackroyd, J.G. Ballard, John King, Ian McEwan, Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Zadie Smith have been registering the changes to the social and cultural London landscape for years. This volume brings together their vivid representations of the capital. Uniting the readings are themes such as relationship between the country and the city; the capacity of satirical forms to encompass the 'real London'; spatio-temporal transformations and emergences; the relationship between multiculturalism and universalism; the underground as the spatial equivalent of London's unconsciousness and the suburbs as the frontier of the future. The volume creates a framework for new approaches to the representation of London required by the unprecedented social uncertainties of recent years: an invaluable contribution to studies of contemporary writing about London.

Reviews

This is a coherent collection of insightful essays that valuably extends critical study of London fictions right up to the leading edge of the citys contemporary moment. * Modern Language Review *
Achieves more than merely celebrating Londons hybridity ... The volume is essential reading for specialists. * Forum for Modern Language Studies *

Author Bio

Nick Hubble is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary English Literature at Brunel University London, UK. Philip Tew is Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) at Brunel University London, UK, Director of Brunel's Centre for Contemporary Writing and Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies.