Manchester University Press Twenty-First-Century Fiction: Contemporary British Voices

Can it yet mean anything to speak about the fiction of the twenty-first century? Into what shapes are the forces of rapid global technologisation and political conflict moulding literary fiction? Twenty-first-century fiction offers readings of the work of Ali Smith, Andrew O'Hagan, Tom McCarthy, Sarah Hall, and Jon McGregor – five of the most interesting and original voices to have emerged in British fiction since the millennium – as they tackle the challenges of portraying the new century. This book traces the contours of contemporary British fiction, opening a window onto the formal and thematic concerns that characterise a literary landscape troubled by both familiar and new predicaments. These include traditional questions of literariness and the cultural value of fiction as a form of social and political commentary but also specifically contemporary questions about the meaning of humanness in an age of digital intercourse; the need for a return to authenticity in the wake of postmodernism; and the dislocation of self from the other under neoliberal individualism. In answering these questions, the writers under investigation reveal anxieties not just about the continuing relevance of literary fiction as a form but also about the stability of being in an era defined by uncertainty. By relating its readings of these authors to the wider shifts in contemporary literary criticism, Twenty-first-century fiction provides an in-depth analysis of important landmarks of recent fiction and a critical introduction to the challenges of understanding the literature of our time. This book will appeal to lecturers, research students and undergraduates working in British literary studies but also the general reader with an interest in contemporary fiction.