The Novel Now: Contemporary British Fiction Book

This will be the first comprehensive single-authored survey of the complex landscape of contemporary fiction in Britain and Northern Ireland, covering the period from 1970 to the present day. Author Richard Bradford, who is Professor of English at the University of Ulster, provides a detailed account of familiar figures such as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Salmon Rushdie, Angela Carter and Will Self and also considers the relationship between their work and that of more recent arrivals, including David Mitchell, Ali Smith, A.L. Kennedy, Matt Thorne, Nicola Barker and Toby Litt. The survey is by its nature polemical, since there is as yet no consensus about whom or what the most important writers and contexts are. What it offers, however, is a thorough account of the state of contemporary fiction in Britain, within which the reader can situate their own interests or against which they can offer an alternative agenda. The book incorporates coverage of subgenres such as ldquo;chick litrdquo;, ldquo;lad litrdquo;, crime fiction and the historical novel. It also examines the ways in which gender, sexuality and sexual orientation have been addressed in fiction over the past three decades and considers how tensions between regional, national and racial identity have surfaced in British and Northern Irish fiction. The book is evaluative, supplementing an account of the novelists who have risen to prominence over the past few decades with judgments on the quality of their work.