Examining a range of twentieth century writers, including Vera Brittain, Anne Frank and Eva Hoffman, this study focuses on how recent theories of trauma can elucidate the narrative strategies employed in their autobiographical writing. The historical circumstances of each author are also considered. The result is a book which provides a vivid sense of how women writers have attempted to encompass key events of the twentieth century, particularly the First World War and the Holocaust, within their life stories.

This book identifies memory a previously unexamined concern in both literary and popular writing of the 1940s. Emphasizing the use of memory as a structural device, this book traces developments in narrative, during and immediately after the war. Authors include Margery Allingham, Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene, Patrick Hamilton and Denton Welch.

Shows how central the Second World War still is to post-war writing. Focusing on the upsurge of interest in the Second World War in recent British novels, this monograph explores the ways in which secrecy and secret work - including code-breaking, espionage and special operations - have been approached in representations of the war. It considers established writers, including Muriel Spark, Sarah Waters and Kazuo Ishiguro, as well as newer voices, such as Liz Jensen and Peter Ho Davies. The examination of the after-effects of involvement in secret work, inter-generational secrets in a domestic...