Sebastian Groes

Ian McEwan is one of the most significant, and controversial, British novelists working in the contemporary period. Although primarily a novelist, he has also written short stories, television plays, a libretto, a children's book and a film adaptation. This guide brings together a collection of fresh perspectives on McEwan's oeuvre, not only covering the early works and his writing for the screen but also incorporating detailed and original analyses of the later work, including his most recent novella, On Chesil Beach. It also includes a preface by Matt Ridley, the controversial writer on genetics and human behavior, about McEwan's obsession with science, as well as a unique discussion with McEwan himself.

Contemporary Critical Perspectives

Ian McEwan

Jeannette Baxter

Peter Childs

Kaye Mitchell

Roberta Garret

Liam Harrison

A critically acclaimed and controversial contemporary British author, Rachel Cusk's work offers a striking representation of trends in modern writing through her rejection of the conventional trappings of realism and her pushing the limits between fiction and life writing. Rachel Cusk: Contemporary Critical Pesrpectives is a critical guide to Cusk's broad oeuvre, covering such novels as Saving Agnes, A Country Life, and Second Place among others; her 'autofictional' Outline trilogy; and her nonfiction works such as A Life's Work, The Last Supper, Aftermath and the Coventry essays. Substantial and wide-ranging, this book provides an accessible and lucid introduction to Cusk's work, exploring such themes as gender relations, class dynamics, maternal identity, personal and creative freedom, and calls upon critical fields from gender studies to biographical writing studies. The book then rounds off with an in-depth interview with Rachel Cusk herself about her writing and experiences. Mapping the formal and stylistic shift across her career and locating them within their specific contexts, this collection provides a crucial analysis of Cusk's influences, politics, and literary techniques that speak to many of the most pressing issues in contemporary literature.

Rachel Cusk

Wendy Knepper

Courtney Hopf

David Mitchell is one of the most critically acclaimed authors in contemporary global writing. Novels such as Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks demonstrate the author's dazzling literary technique in an oeuvre that crosses genres, genders and borders, moving effortlessly through time and space. David Mitchell: Contemporary Critical Perspectives brings together leading scholars of contemporary fiction to guide readers through the full range of the author's writings, including discussions of all of his novels to-date plus his shorter fictions, essays and libretti. As well as offering extended coverage of Mitchell's most popular work, Cloud Atlas, the authors explore Mitchell's genre-hopping techniques, world-making aesthetics, and engagements with key contemporary issues such as globalization, empire, the environment, disability, trauma and technology. In addition, this book includes an expansive interview with David Mitchell as well as a guide to further reading to help students and readers alike explore the works of this tremendously inventive writer.

David Mitchell

Eileen Pollard

Ginette Carpenter

The first British writer to win the Booker Prize on two separate occasions - for Wolf Hall in 2009 and its sequel Bring Up the Bodies in 2012 - Hilary Mantel is one of the most popular and lauded novelists working today. Hilary Mantel: Contemporary Critical Perspectives is a critical guide to Mantel's work, from her earliest novels through to her recent Thomas Cromwell fictions, including analysis of her short story collections and memoir. Chapters cover such topics as Mantel's engagement with history to her deployment of the spectral and her extensive intertextuality. The book also includes a comprehensive interview with Mantel herself that explores her work and career.

Hilary Mantel

R. M. Francis

From Banks’s brewery’s yeasty stink to groaty pudding to spicy curry, Sebastian Groes and R. M. Francis have assembled a new literary history of the smells and (childhood) memories that belong to the Black Country. This often overlooked region of the United Kingdom at the frontlines of post-industrial upheaval is a veritable treasure trove for studying the relationship between olfaction and place-specific memory. Smell, Memory, and Literature in the Black Country is an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between smell and memory in which the contributions consider both personal and communal memory. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, memory studies, literary studies and philosophy, the critical essays reconsider psychogeography through cutting-edge sensory and philosophical engagements with physical space, smell, language and human behaviour. The creative contributions from writers including Liz Berry, Narinder Dhami, Anthony Cartwright, and Kerry Hadley-Pryce meditate on the senses, place, and identity. Not only does this book illustrate the rich cultural heritage of the Black Country, it will also appeal to those interested in place writing. The book is prefaced by Will Self.

Smell, Memory, and Literature in the Black Country

Ian McEwan is one of the most significant, and controversial, British novelists working today. His books are both critically - and academically - acclaimed and embraced by readers across the world. Although primarily a novelist, he has also written short stories, television plays, a libretto, a children's book and a film adaptation. Across these many forms his work retains a distinctive character that explores questions of morality, place and history, nationhood, sexuality and gender. Now fully updated for its second edition, this guide brings together a collection of new critical perspectives on McEwan's oeuvre, not only covering the early works and his writing for the screen but also incorporating detailed and original analyses of the later work, including new readings of his latest books, Solar and Sweet Tooth. With an updated and extended guide to further critical reading on McEwan, the book also includes an interview with the author himself, a chronology of his life, work and times and the full text of a lost early McEwan short story.

Contemporary Critical Perspectives, 2nd edition

An up-to-date critical collection on the work of contemporary British novelist, Julian Barnes.

Julian Barnes

An up-to-date reader of critical essays on Ian McEwan by leading international academics, covering McEwan's most recent novels including Saturday, On Chesil Beach and an analysis of the film adaptation of Enduring Love.

Barry Lewis

Sean Matthews

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the finest contemporary authors who possesses that increasingly rare distinction of being a writer who is both popular with the general reading public and well-respected within the academic community. Kazuo Ishiguro: New Critical Visions of the Novels presents eighteen fresh perspectives on the author's work that will appeal to those who read him for pleasure or for purposes of study. Established and rising critics reassess Ishiguro's works from the early 'Japanese' novels through to his short story cycle Nocturnes, paying particular attention to The Remains of the Day, The Unconsoled, When We Were Orphans and Never Let Me Go. They address universal themes such as history, memory and mortality, but also provide groundbreaking explorations of diverse areas ranging from the posthuman and 'minor literature' to ethics, science fiction and Ishiguro's musical imagination. Featuring an insightful interview with Ishiguro himself, this collection of essays constitutes a significant contribution to the appreciation of his novels, and forms a lively and nuanced constellation of critical enquiry. Preface by Brian W. Shaffer. Essays by: Jeannette Baxter, Caroline Bennett, Christine Berberich, Lydia R. Cooper, Sebastian Groes, Meghan Marie Hammond, Tim Jarvis, Barry Lewis, Liani Lochner, Christopher Ringrose, Victor Sage, Andy Sawyer, Motoyuki Shibata, Gerry Smyth, Krystyna Stamirowska, Motoko Sugano, Patricia Waugh, Alyn Webley.

New Critical Visions of the Novels

Kazuo Ishiguro

British Fictions of the Sixties focuses on the major socio-political changes that marked the sixties in relationship to the development of literature over the decade. This book is the first critical study to acknowledge that the 1960s can only be understood if, next to its contemporary socio-political history, its fictions and mythologies are acknowledged as a vital constituent in the understanding of the decade. Groes uncovers a major epistemological shift, and presents a powerful meta-narrative about post-war literature in the UK, and beyond. British Fictions of the Sixties offers a re-examination of canonical writers such as Iris Murdoch, Angela Carter, Muriel Spark and John Fowles. It also pays critical attention to avant-garde writers including Ann Quinn, Bridget Brophy, Eva Figes, Christine Brooke-Rose, and J. G. Ballard, presenting a comprehensive insight into the continuing power the decade exerts on the contemporary imagination.

The Making of the Swinging Decade

British Fictions of the Sixties

This is an up-to-date reader of critical essays on Kazuo Ishiguro by leading international academics.

With a new chapter on Solar, this is an up-to-date guide to critical writing on Ian McEwan, including an interview with the author.

Contemporary Critical Perspectives, 2nd Edition

This book maps and analyses the changing state of memory at the start of the twenty-first century in essays written by scientists, scholars and writers. It recontextualises memory by investigating the impact of new conditions such as the digital revolution, climate change and an ageing population on our world.

New Critical Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences

Memory in the Twenty-First Century

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the finest and most accomplished contemporary writers of his generation. The short story author, television writer and novelist, included twice in Granta's list of Best Young British Writers, has over the past twenty-five years produced a body of work which is just as critically-acclaimed as it is popular with the general public. Like the writings of Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro's work is concerned with creating discursive platforms for issues of class, ethics, ethnicity, nationhood, place, gender and the uses and problems surrounding artistic representation. As a Japanese immigrant who came to Great Britain in 1960, Ishiguro has used his unique position and fine intellectual abilities to contemplate what it means to be British in the contemporary era. This guide traces the main themes throughout Ishiguro's writing whilst it also pays attention to his short stories and writing for television. It includes a new interview with the author, a preface by Haruki Murakami and discussion of James Ivory's adaptation of The Remains of the Day.

Sebastian Groes

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