English Fiction Since 1984: Narrating a Nation

Building on the increasing number of surveys of contemporary British fiction available, this book focuses on representative novels by eleven key English novelists who have broken in different ways from the realist British novel of the post Second World War period without losing their broad appeal among readers. They have reacted to the Thatcherite revolution that thrust Britain into the modern world of multi-national capitalism by giving unusual fictional shape to the impact of global events and culture, and by experimenting with innovatory narrative modes and fictional techniques to represent the changing world in which they find themselves. This book should be of wide interest to students and instructors in contemporary British fiction.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements - Introduction - PART I: HISTORY, MODERNITY AND METAFICTION - Preface - Peter Ackroyd: Chatterton (1987) - Julian Barnes: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (1989) - Martin Amis: Time's Arrow (1991) - A.S. Byatt: Angels and Insects (1992) - Ian McEwan: Atonement (2001) - PART II: NATIONAL CULTURES AND HYBRID NARRATIVE MODES - Preface - Salman Rushdie: The Satanic Verses (1988) - Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) - Kazuo Ishiguro: When We Were Orphans (2000) - PART III: NARRATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS OF IDENTITY - Preface - Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus (1984) - Jeanette Winterson: Written on the Body (1992) - Graham Swift: Last Orders (1996) - Bibliography - Index

Author Biography

BRIAN FINNEY is an Associate Professor in English at California State University, Long Beach, USA. He taught at London University from 1964-1987, and, since emigrating to the USA, at UCR, UCLA, and USC. He has published Since How It Is: A Study of Samuel Beckett's Later Fiction (1972), Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography for which he awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1979, The Inner I: British Literary Autobiography of the Twentieth Century (1985) and D. H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers: A Critical Study (1990).