3 Review(s)

Contemporary Novelists: British Fiction, 1970-2003 introduces and explores the major work of twelve of the most widely-studied British novelists of the last thirty years: Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Angela Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Irvine Welsh, and Jeanette Winterson. Treating each author separately, Peter Childs develops new readings of these writers' key novels and provides sections covering literary history and major themes. An introductory chapter examines and explains the dominant concerns of contemporary British novels, as well as changes in fiction, society and criticism since the war. Childs ranges over debates centred on a variety of subjects, from the rumoured death of the novel in the 1970s to its resurrection in the 1980s, to the Booker Prize and the Granta 'Best Young Novelists' lists, while the Conclusion examines the 'state of fiction' at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The volume also includes a helpful timeline which charts the major events, fiction and non-fiction in each year from 1970 to 2003.Approachable and insightful, this is an indispensable guide for anyone with an interest in the work of some of Britain's most successful contemporary novelists.