The 1990s: A Decade of Contemporary British Fiction

Description

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1990s shape contemporary British Fiction? From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the turn of the millennium, the 1990s witnessed a realignment of global politics. Against the changing international scene, this volume uses events abroad and in Britain to examine and explain the changes taking place in British fiction, including: the celebration of national identities, fuelled by the move toward political devolution in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; the literary optimism in urban ethnic fictions written by a new generation of authors, born and raised in Britain; the popularity of neo-Victorian fiction. Critical surveys are balanced by in-depth readings of work by the authors who defined the decade, including A.S. Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Will Self, Caryl Phillips and Irvine Welsh: an approach that illustrates exactly how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade. Cover Contents Contributors Series Editors’ Preface Acknowledgements Critical Introduction: Recovering the 1990s Philip Tew, Leigh Wilson and Nick Hubble 1 Literary History of the Decade: The Emergence of Post-Industrial British Fiction Martyn Colebrook 2 Special Topic 1: Rewriting National Identities in 1990s British Fiction Nick Bentley 3 Special Topic 2: Satirical Apocalypse: Endism and the 1990s Fictions of Will Self Katy Shaw and Philip Tew 4 Postcolonial and Diasporic Voices – Bringing Black to the Union Jack: Ethnic Fictions and the Politics of Possibility Sara Upstone 5 Historical Representations: Between the Short and Long Twentieth Centuries: Temporal Displacement in the Historical Fiction of the 1990s Nick Hubble 6 Generic Discontinuities and Variations: Experimental Enunciations in 1990s British Fiction Mark P. Williams 7 International Contexts 1: Whatever do the Germans Want? 1990s British Fiction and the Condition of Germany Anja Müller-Wood 8 International Contexts 2: National Identity and the Immigrant Paoi Hwang Timeline of Works Timeline of National Events Timeline of International Events Biographies of Writers Index