This series provides accessible yet provocative introductions to a wide range of literatures. The volumes will initiate and deepen the reader's understanding of key literary movements, periods and genres, and consider debates that inform the past, present and future of literary study. Resources such as glossaries of key terms and details of archives and internet sites are also provided, making each volume a comprehensive critical guide.
This critical guide introduces major novelists and themes in British fiction from
1975 to 2005. It engages with concepts such as postmodernism, feminism,
gender and the postcolonial, and examines the place of fiction within broader
debates in contemporary culture.
A comprehensive Introduction provides a historical context for the study of
contemporary British fiction by detailing significant social, political and cultural
events. This is followed by five chapters organised around the core themes:
Narrative Forms; Contemporary Ethnicities; Gender and Sexuality;
History, Memory and Writing; and Narratives of Cultural Space.
Key Features
o Introduces the major themes and trends in British fiction over the last 30 years
o Analyses a range of writers and texts including Brick Lane by Monica Ali,
London Fields by Martin Amis, The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter,
Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi,
Atonement by Ian McEwan, Shame by Salman Rushdie, Downriver by Iain
Sinclair, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by
Jeanette Winterson
o Presents a variety of critical and cultural perspectives essential for studying contemporary
British fiction
o Provides essential resources for further reading and research
Nick Bentley is Lecturer in Twentieth-Century Literature at Keele University. He
is the author of Radical Fictions: The British Novel in the 1950s (2007) and editor
of British Fiction of the 1990s (2005).

Nick Bentley lectures in English literature at Keele University. His main research interests are in post-1945 British fiction and literary and cultural theory. He is author of Radical Fictions: The English Novel in the 1950s (Peter Lang, 2007) and editor of British Fiction of the 1990s (Routledge, 2005). He has published journal articles on Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith, Colin MacInnes, Sam Selvon, and the representations of youth in British New Left writing.

Series Preface; Acknowledgements; Chronology; Introduction: Historical and Theoretical Contexts 1979-2005; Chapter 1 Narrative Forms: Postmodernism and Realism; Martin Amis, London Fields (1989); Alasdair Gray, Poor Things (1992); Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000); Chapter 2 Writing Contemporary Ethnicities; Salman Rushdie, Shame (1983); Courttia Newland, Soceity Within (1999); Monica Ali, Brick Lane (2003); Chapter 3 Gender and Sexuality; Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve (1977); Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985); Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch (1992); Chapter 4 History, Memory and Writing; Graham Swift, Waterland (1983); A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance (1990); Ian McEwan, Atonement (2001); Chapter 5 Narratives of Cultural Space; Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (1990); Iain Sinclair, Downriver (1991); Julian Barnes, England, England (1998); Conclusion; Student Resources; Internet Resources; Questions for Discussion; Alternative Primary Texts; Glossary; Guide to Further Reading; Index.