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The study of contemporary fiction is a fascinating yet challenging one. Contemporary fiction has immediate relevance to popular culture, the news, scholarly organizations, and education - where it is found on the syllabus in schools and universities - but it also offers challenges. What is 'contemporary'? How do we track cultural shifts and changes? The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First Century Literary Fiction takes on this challenge, mapping key literary trends from the year 2000 onwards, as the landscape of our century continues to take shape around us. A significant and central intervention into contemporary literature, this Companion offers essential coverage of writers who have risen to prominence since then, such as Hari Kunzru, Jennifer Egan, David Mitchell, Jonathan Lethem, Ali Smith, A. L. Kennedy, Hilary Mantel, Marilynne Robinson, and Colson Whitehead.
Thirty-eight essays by leading and emerging international scholars cover topics such as:
- Identity, including race, sexuality, class, and religion in the twenty-first century;
- The impact of technology, terrorism, activism, and the global economy on the modern world and modern literature;
- The form and format of twenty-first century literary fiction, including analysis of established genres such as the pastoral, graphic novels, and comedic writing, and how these have been adapted in recent years.
Accessible to experts, students, and general readers, The Routledge Companion to Twenty-First Century Literary Fiction provides a map of the critical issues central to the discipline, as well as uncovering new perspectives and new directions for the development of the field. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the past, present, and future of contemporary literature.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
Introduction
PART I: Forms
Chapter 1. The networked novel
Chapter 2. Globalization
Chapter 3. Sincerity
Chapter 4. Autobiografiction
Chapter 5. Experiment
Chapter 6. Comedy
Chapter 7. Metafiction
Chapter 8. Pastoral
Chapter 9. Realisms
Chapter 10. Comics and graphic novels
PART II: Identities
Chapter 11. Black British fiction
Chapter 12: Queer
Chapter 13. Family
Chapter 14. Religion
Chapter 15. Diaspora
Chapter 16. Indian fiction in English
Chapter 17. Northern Irish fiction
Chapter 18. Animals
PART III: Ruptures
Chapter 19. (The) Digital
Chapter 20. Anthropocene
Chapter 21. Displacement
Chapter 22. Asylum
Chapter 23. Finance
Chapter 24. The 9/11 Novel
Chapter 25. War on Terror
Chapter 26. From Civil Rights to #BLM
Chapter 27. The past
Chapter 28. Hope
PART IV: Case studies
Chapter 29. Granta's 'Best of Young British Novelists'
Chapter 30. Hari Kunzru
Chapter 31. Jennifer Egan
Chapter 32. David Mitchell
Chapter 33. Jonathan Lethem
Chapter 34. Ali Smith
Chapter 35. A. L. Kennedy
Chapter 36. Hilary Mantel
Chapter 37. Marilynne Robinson
Chapter 38. Colson Whitehead
Index
About the author
Daniel O’Gorman is Lecturer in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He works on contemporary literature and terror.
Robert Eaglestone is Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK and works on contemporary literature and literary theory, contemporary philosophy and on Holocaust and Genocide studies.
Summary
A significant and central intervention into the field of Contemporary Literature, this volume focuses on fiction from the year 2000 and forward.
