Description

A York Notes Companion for students of contemporary literature, this volume looks at the literature of our own times, shaped by recent experiences from millennial anxieties to the events of 9/11. Placing texts within a cultural and critical context, the book discusses emerging genres such as multicultural and post-colonial writing, contemporary theatre, autobiography and the neo-Victorian novel. Established writers such as A. S. Byatt, Salman Rushdie, and Carol Ann Duffy are featured alongside the newer voices of Zadie Smith, Alan Hollinghurst and Sarah Waters in a volume which offers an essential overview of the contemporary literary scene.

Features

• Analysis of key texts and debates
• Extended commentaries provide further in-depth analysis of individual texts
• Notes contain extra context and explanations of literary terms
• Historical, social and cultural contexts explored in introductory chapters and alongside discussions
• Modern critical theory and perspectives in practice
• Timelines and annotated further reading

Table of Contents

Part One: Introduction

 

Part Two: A Cultural Overview

 

Part Three: Texts, Writers and Contexts

 

• The Neo-Victorian Novel – A. S. Byatt, Peter Carey, Sarah Waters
  •  Extended commentary, Waters, Fingersmith (2002)

• Contemporary Theatre – Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, David Hare
  • Extended commentary, Kane, Blasted (1995)

• Multicultural/Postcolonial Writing – Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Zadie Smith
  • Extended commentary, Ali, Brick Lane (2003)

• New Diversities in Contemporary Poetry – Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Benjamin Zephaniah
  • Extended commentary, Duffy, Feminine Gospels (2002)
• Gender and Sexuality – Jeanette Winterson, Helen Fielding, Alan Hollinghurst
  • Extended commentary, Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty (2004)

• Writing the Self: Biography and Autobiography – Frank McCourt, David Lodge
  • Extended commentary, Lodge, Author, Author (2005)

Part Four: Critical theories and Debates

 

• Remembering the Past
• Post-Millennial Anxieties and Dystopia
• Literature and Celebrity
• Writing the Child

 

 

Part Five: Resources

 

Timeline

 

Further reading

 

Index

Back Cover

New Directions, Literature Post-1990

This York Notes Companion to literature after 1990 examines contemporary writing in English at the turn of the millennium and beyond. Introducing emerging genres such as multicultural and postcolonial writing, contemporary theatre, autobiography and the neo-Victorian novel, the Companion explores the work of established writers such as A. S. Byatt, Salman Rushdie, and Carol Ann Duffy alongside the newer voices of Zadie Smith, Alan Hollinghurst and Sarah Waters, offering detailed commentaries on texts and guiding students through key literary theories and debates. Connecting texts with their historical and scholarly contexts, this is essential reading for any student of contemporary literature. 

 

Each York Notes Companion provides:

• Analysis  of key texts and debates  
• Extended  commentaries for further in-depth analysis of individual texts  
• Exploration  of historical, social and cultural contexts
• Annotations clarifying literary terms and events in history
• Modern  theoretical perspectives in practice  
• Timelines  and annotated further reading

 

Fiona Tolan is a Lecturer in English at Liverpool John Moores University.

 

Author

Dr Fiona Tolan is a lecturer in English at Liverpool John Moores University, where she teaches on a variety of twentieth- and twenty-first century literature modules. Her first book, Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction (Rodopi, 2007), won the Margaret Atwood Society ‘Best Book’ Award for 2007, and she is co-editor of Writers Talk: Conversations with Contemporary British Novelists, with Philip Tew and Leigh Wilson, for Continuum (2008). Fiona has also published articles and book chapters on a number of contemporary British and Canadian writers, including Pat Barker, Zadie Smith, Alice Munro, Kate Atkinson, and Ian McEwan. Her current research is on ethics and contemporary British fiction. She is a Council Member of the British Association of Canadian Studies and an associate editor of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.