Introduction to Contemporary Fiction

ISBN-13: 9780745619576 / Angielski / Miękka / 1999 / 256 str.

Rod Mengham

Opis

This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to fiction in the English-speaking world during the period from 1970 to the present day. During this period, a sea change has transformed fiction in English, and this collection introduces the key developments as well as the works of some of the most important writers today.

Spis treści

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction: Rod Mengham.

Part I: Issues:.

1. Constructions of Identity in Post–1970 Experimental Fiction: Kathleen M. Wheeler.

2. The Power to Tell: Rape, Race and Writing in Afro–American Women′s Fiction: Maud Ellmann.

3. Looking Awry: Tropes of Disability in Post–colonial Writing: Ato Quayson.

4. Movement in Fiction: John Harvey.

Part II: Key Texts and Authors: .

5. The Dissident Imagination: Beckett′s Late Prose Fiction: Drew Milne.

6. The Mutations of William Burroughs: Geoff Ward.

7. 1973 The End of History: Cultural Change According to Muriel Spark: Rod Mengham.

8. Oswald our Contemporary: Don DeLillo′s Libra: N. H. Reeve.

9. Graham Swift and the Mourning After: Adrian Poole.

10. Mapping the Margins: Translation, Invasion and Celtic Islands in Brian Moore and John Fuller: Sophie Gilmartin.

11. The Uses of Impurity: Fiction and Fundamentalism in Salman Rushdie and Jeanette Winterson: Mark Wormald.

12. Sex, Violence and Complicity: Martin Amis and Ian McEwan: Kiernan Ryan.

13. Can Fiction Swear? James Kelman and the Booker Prize: Geoff Gilbert.

Bibliography.

Index.

O autorze

Rod Mengham is Lecturer in Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Director of Studies in English, Jesus College, Cambridge

Blurb

This volume provides a comprehensive introduction to fiction in the English–speaking world during the period from 1970 to the present day. During this period, a sea change has transformed fiction in English, and this collection introduces the key developments as well as the works of some of the most important writers today.

The book has a truly international scope, as it draws together the work of critics concerned with British, Irish, North American, African, Indian and Australasian writing. Thirteen scholars have combined forces to discuss a wide variety of texts, authors, themes and issues. Fictional works are discussed in relation to different historical, theoretical and political issues, including postmodernism, postcolonialism, ethnicity, gender and genre. The works of several major and sometimes notorious figures are introduced and skilfully analysed, including those of Martin Amis, Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, J. M. Coetzee, Don DeLillo, James Kelman, Ian McEwan, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Muriel Spark, Graham Swift, Alice Walker, Alan Warner and Jeanette Winterson.

A stimulating introduction for students of contemporary fiction, this volume provides a balanced and well–informed view of various literary works and key issues in the cultural and critical agenda.