| Reviews |
| - 'King provides an authoritative, brisk, and detailed survey of the poetry, fiction, and drama produced by these writers since 1948 ... he deftly places the texts within their specific historical, social, and biographical contexts ... an essential resource for anyone who wishes to explore the literature produced in England during the past fifty years, and a means for scholars who wish to pursue
the fuller implications of its title ... there is no comparably wide-ranging and thorough study of post-World War II writers of color in England.' - C.L. Innes, Research in African Literatures
- '...remarkably thorough and utterly reliable' - Forum for Modern Language Studies
- 'King is admirably ready to discriminate between writing with stylistic integrity and shallow work that owes its success more to liberal guilt than literary merit.' - Jeremy Noel-Tod, Saturday Telegraph
- 'This survey is unprecedented in its seriousness and detail. King traces historical influences, along with the biography of subsequent writers, putting them in the context of both their ethnic background and their British environment. He reads genres with an unusual degree of attention. He balances shifts in consciousness against changes in political and social awareness.' - Mike Phillips,
The Guardian Review
- 'Bruce King brings to the scene the virtues of traditional lit-crit. along with a tough-minded determination to map the features of the new writing. He begins with a refreshingly bullish justification of his title and subject.' - Mike Phillips, The Guardian Review
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| Description | | - The concluding volume in The Oxford English Literary History
- Covers colonial, postcolonial, and immigrant writers since 1948, including writers such as V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Doris Lessing
- Discusses the future of English literary history - can it continue to exist in this age of globalization?
| In the future, what will 'English Literary History' mean? A literary history of England, or one with much looser boundaries, defined only by a communality of language, not by location or history? In this, the latest volume in the Oxford English Literary History, Bruce King discusses the literature written by those who have chosen to make England their home since 1948. With decolonization
following World War II, and the growth of large immigrant communities in England, came a wave of colonial, postcolonial, and immigrant writers whose entry onto the British cultural landscape forces us to consider what it is to be British, English, or national now that England is multiracial and part of a global economy.
King addresses these new trends in English literature and the questions
they raise in the first wide-ranging and comprehensive account of immigrant literature set in a social context. Ranging through Black and Asian British prose, poetry and drama, and writers including V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, and Zadie Smith, King reveals the development of the literature from writing about immigration to becoming English. Now that the literature of England
includes Sri Lankans, Egyptians, and British Nigerians, does this mean that we can no longer talk of the English nation as a cultural unit? King concludes persuasively that it does not. We have not seen the demise of national cultures, but rather, a new, accomplished, and socially significant body of writing in England is influenced by the interaction between foreign cultures and British
traditions. This bold and challenging account of British culture will shape debate for future generations.
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Readership: Scholars and students of twentieth-century English literature and history with an interest in colonial, postcolonial, and immigrant literature; literary theory; and cultural identity.
| Contents |
**Table of Contents to be confirmed**
I. Introduction and Background
1.
1947-1967, the Twilight of the Empire
2.
1968-1980
3.
1981-2000
II. Sailing to England, Commonwealth Literature, Cosmopolitans
4.
Sailing to England
5.
The Commonwealth as Discourse, Foundation, and Structure
6.
The White Commonwealth and England's New Literature
7.
Diasporas, New Nations, and New Identities: V. S. and Shiva Naipaul
8.
From Partition to International Postcolonialism: Hosain, Ghose,and Rushdie
III. Black, 'Postcolonial', and Post-National England
9.
The New Black English Literature
10.
British West Indians and History
11.
Further Remapping of Boundaries
12.
British African Writing
13.
Asian British Literature
14.
Self-representations by Black and Asian British Women
15.
Other Narratives
Author Bibliographies
Suggestions for Further Reading
Works Cited
Index
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
Bruce King, has held professorships worldwide
|
The specification in this catalogue, including without
limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations,
and month of publication, was as accurate as
possible at the time the catalogue was compiled.
Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we
are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory.
Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
|
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