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Contemporary British Fiction

ENGL 074.910
instructor(s):
TR 6-9:10

Fulfills Distributional Course in Arts & Letters (for students admitted before Fall 2006)

This course examines prize-winning and critically acclaimed British fiction since approximately 1985. We will focus in particular on these recent authors’ formulation of the Bildungsroman (novel of education), the representation of “Englishness” in a postcolonial age, the exploration of sexual identity, and the dynamics of power in marriage and intimate relationships. We will also explore how these artists craft the acts of writing and the interpretation of narrative. Authors may include Ian McEwan (Atonement and On Chesil Beach), A.S. Byatt (Possession), Jeanette Winterson (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles), Janice Galloway (The Trick Is to Keep Breathing), Julian Barnes (Love, etc. and Arthur and George), Zadie Smith (On Beauty), Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones’s Diary), Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day), Ali Smith (The Accidental), Nick Horby (High Fidelity), Anita Brookner (Hotel du Lac), John Banville (The Sea), as well as new voices such as Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies), Monica Ali (Brick Lane) and Simon Van Booy (The Secret Lives of People in Love).

fulfills requirements