This book provides a comprehensive account and critical analysis of the literary career of Pat Barker. It offers readings of Barker's innovations in narrative form, her revisionist perspectives on history, class and gender, and her preoccupation with themes of trauma, haunting and terror. It also analyses the reasons for her success and significance as a novelist. The chapters draw on contemporary theories of critical realism, gender and social identities, memory and narrative, in order to outline the debates with which Barker's work has consistently engaged. Brannigan argues that Barker...
This book provides a comprehensive account and critical analysis of the literary career of Pat Barker. It offers readings of Barker's innovations i...
Irvine Welsh's fiction has defined an era, and this first full-length study provides a sustained textual and contextual analysis of all his work, from 'Trainspotting' and 'The Acid House' to 'Glue' and 'Porno'. A detailed chronological survey also considers the appropriateness of cultural, postmodern and postcolonial theories to Welsh's incendiary fiction. Kelly gives a fascinating insight into the writer's formal and political ambitions, placing him in the context of the 'brat pack' which exploded onto the Scottish literary scene in the 1990s. He explores the social, class and political...
Irvine Welsh's fiction has defined an era, and this first full-length study provides a sustained textual and contextual analysis of all his work, from...
In this survey Ian McEwan emerges as one of those rare writers whose works have received both popular and critical acclaim. His novels grace the bestseller lists, and he is well regarded by critics, both as a stylist and as a serious thinker about the function and capacities of narrative fiction. McEwan's novels treat issues that are central to our times: politics, and the promotion of vested interests; male violence and the problem of gender relations; science and the limits of rationality; nature and ecology; love and innocence; and the quest for an ethical worldview. Yet he is also an...
In this survey Ian McEwan emerges as one of those rare writers whose works have received both popular and critical acclaim. His novels grace the bests...
This book offers an accessible critical introduction to the work of Graham Swift, one of Britain's most significant contemporary authors. Through detailed readings of his novels and short stories from 'The Sweet Shop Owner' (1980) to 'The Light of Day' (2003), Daniel Lea lucidly addresses the key themes of history, loss, masculinity and ethical redemption, to present a fresh approach to Swift.
This study proposes that one of the side-effects of modernity has been the destruction of traditional pathways of self and collective belief, leading to a loss of understanding between...
This book offers an accessible critical introduction to the work of Graham Swift, one of Britain's most significant contemporary authors. Through d...
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.
Onega reveals the books as complex linguistic artefacts, crammed...
This is the first full-length study of Jeanette Winterson's complete oeuvre, offering detailed analysis of her nine novels as well as addressing he...
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...
A clearly written, comprehensive critical introduction to one of the most original contemporary British writers, providing an overview of all of Sincl...
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. He was awarded the National Book Critics' Circle Fiction prize (USA) for Being Dead in 2000.
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 The Pesthouse (2007).
Designed especially...
Jim Crace is one of the most imaginative of contemporary novelists. The author of nine novels, he has received great public and intellectual acclai...
This book offers a comprehensive account of the work of J.G. Ballard, regarded by several critics as one of the most significant fiction writers of recent times. Ballard's early science-fiction writing earned him plaudits as one of the most innovative and individual voices in the field, but his development as a writer has taken him far beyond the confines of any single genre. This book traces Ballard's career from his early science-fiction short stories and novels to his most recent work, particularly his timely reflections on the role of violence in contemporary social life. It argues that...
This book offers a comprehensive account of the work of J.G. Ballard, regarded by several critics as one of the most significant fiction writers of re...
James Kelman is Scotland's most influential contemporary prose artist. This is the first book-length study of his groundbreaking novels, and it analyses and contextualises 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. Richly historicised through diverse contexts such as Scottish socialism, public transport, emigration, 'Booker Prize' culture and Glasgow's controversial 'City of Culture' status in 1990, Simon...
James Kelman is Scotland's most influential contemporary prose artist. This is the first book-length study of his groundbreaking novels, and it analys...
