A clearly written, comprehensive, critical introduction to one of the most original contemporary British writers, providing an overview of all of Sinclair's major works and an analysis of his vision of modern London. This book places Sinclair in a range of contexts including: the late 1960s counter-culture and the "British Poetry Revival"; London's underground histories; the rise and fall of Thatcherism and Sinclair's writing about Britain under New Labour; Sinclair's connection to other writers and artists, such as J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, and Marc Atkins. This book makes a...

"Jim Crace" is one of the most imaginative of contemporary novelists. The author of nine novels, he has received great public and intellectual acclaim across the UK, Europe, Australia and the United States. Philip Tew's study is the first extended critical examination of Crace's oeuvre and is based on extensive interviews with the novelist, including discussions of his work from his first worldwide bestseller "Continent" (1986) up to his forthcoming novel, "The Pesthouse," to be published in 2007. Designed especially both for undergraduates of contemporary fiction, and for those who simply...

James Kelman is Scotland's most influential contemporary prose artist. This is the first book-length study of his groundbreaking novels. It analyses and contextualizes each in detail. It argues that while Kelman offers a coherent and consistent vision of the world, each novel should be read as a distinct literary response to particular aspects of contemporary working-class language and culture. This study resists the prevalent condemnations of Kelman as a miserable realist and produces evidence that he is acutely aware of an unorthodox, politicized literary tradition that transgresses...

This is the first full-length study of Jeanette Winterson's complete oeuvre, offering detailed analysis of her nine novels as well as addressing her non-fiction and minor fictional work. Susana Onega combines the study of formal issues such as narrative structure, perspective and point of view with thematic analyses approached from a variety of theoretical perspectives, from narratology and feminist theory to Hermetic and Kabalistic symbolism, to provide a comprehensive "vertical" analysis of Winterson's novels.

This stimulating and comprehensive study of A. S. Byatt's work spans virtually her entire career and offers insightful readings of all of Byatt's fictions up to and including The Children's Book (2009).

"Julian Barnes" is a comprehensive introductory overview of the novels that situates his work in terms of fabulation and memory, irony and comedy. It pursues a broadly chronological line through Barnes's literary career, but along the way it also shows how certain key thematic preoccupations and obsessions seem to tie Barnes's oeuvre together (love, death, art, history, truth, and memory). Chapters provide detailed reading of each major publication in turn while treating the major concerns of Barnes's fiction, including art, authorship, history, love and religion. Lucidly written, and also...