Contemporary British Fiction: History and the Present

Contemporary British Fiction: History and the Present provides critical insights into fiction’s interventions in the remaking of British culture in the period of rapid and radical political, economic and cultural changes after the 1960s.  These transformations have juxtaposed a sense of belonging and increasing alienation in a society where the predominant white colour is merging into different shades of humanity, within the reality of mass-scale immigration. The book contains critical readings of some of the leading British novelists. Changed political atmosphere in the post-empire and post-war era, and newly emergent social plurality have, as the editors argue in the introduction, foregrounded the awareness of postcolonial anxieties, nostalgia and the multicultural nature of the English society.  The essays focus on texts that have already become canonical in modern literature. It is hoped that these new readings will open up new discussion, dialogue and further interpretations.