A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction offers an authoritative overview of contemporary British fiction in its social, political, and economic contexts.

• Focuses on the fiction that has emerged since the late 1970s, roughly since the start of the Thatcher era.
• Comprises original essays from major scholars.
• Topics range from the rise and fall of the postcolonial novel to controversies over the celebrity author.
• The emphasis is on the whole fiction scene, from bookstores and prizes to the changing economics of film adaptation.
• Enables students to read contemporary works of British fiction with a much clearer sense of where they fit within British cultural life.

About the Author
James F. English is Professor and Chair of the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Comic Transactions: Literature, Humor, and the Politics of Community in Twentieth-Century Britain (1994) and The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value (2005).

Reviews
"Blackwell's new Companion to contemporary British fiction is a delight to review. It delivers on its promises to be innovative, highly readable, lively and topical, and it warrants wholehearted endorsement as an essenital addition to any library that is seriously developing resources for undergraduate and taught postgraduate study."
Reference Reviews

"James English's companion contains a series of fresh, lively and insightful readings of the key figures in post-war British fiction from Martin Amis to Zadie Smith. Its coverage of the multiple, changing contexts - from globalization and the 'new ethnicities' to the rise of book groups and online retailing - in which that fiction is produced and consumed is generously wide-ranging and satisfyingly informative. This is an authoritative and approachable book." Michael Greaney, Lancaster University

"James English's A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction is a valuable addition to discussions of recent writing. The essays collected here are wide-ranging, well-informed, and critically astute. This book will make a strong contribution to our understanding of the contemporary British novel." Andrzej Gasiorek, University of Birmingham

Book Information
ISBN 9781405120012
Author James F. English
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 463g
Dimensions(mm) 230mm * 154mm * 23mm