Retroland - A Reader's Guide to the Dazzling Diversity of Modern Fiction

The essential companion for lovers of the contemporary novelOver the past fifty years, fiction in English has never looked more various. Books bulkier than Victorian three-deckers appear alongside works of minimalist brevity, and experiments with form have produced everything from verse novels to Twitter-thread narratives. This is truly a golden age. But what unites this kaleidoscopic array of genres and styles? Celebrated writer and critic Peter Kemp shows how modern writers are obsessed with the past. In a series of engaging and illuminating chapters, Retroland traces this novelistic preoccupation with history, from the imperial and the political to the personal and the literary. Featuring famous names from across the United Kingdom, United States, and the wider Anglophone world, ranging from Salman Rushdie to Sarah Waters, Toni Morrison to Hilary Mantel, this is a work of remarkable synthesis and clarity-a wonderfully readable and enjoyably opinionated guide to our current literary landscape.

Product details

• Authors: Peter Kemp
• Publisher: Yale University Press Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.07.2023
• EAN: 9780300269628
• ISBN: 978-0-300-26962-8
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 165 mm x 242 mm x 35 mm
• Subjects: Guides > Self-help, everyday life > Family; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; USA, English, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 21st Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Ireland, United Kingdom, Great Britain, United States of America, USA, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Literary studies: from c 2000