Literature of the 1990s: Endings and Beginnings - Paperback

by Peter Marks (Author)

Provides a synoptic view of the exuberant and challenging fiction, poetry and drama created in 1990s Britain

Placing literary creativity within a changing cultural and political context that saw the end of Margaret Thatcher and rise of New Labour, this book offers fresh interpretations of mainstream and marginal works from all parts of Britain. Based on a framework of thematically-structured accounts, the individual chapters cover national identity, ethnicity, sexuality, class, celebrity culture, history and fantasy in literature from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. It offers its readers a comprehensive view of the changing and challenging literary landscape in this period, critically examining the fiction, poetry and drama as well as representative films, art and music. Placed within the broader context of a transformative political and cultural environment that included Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, Damian Hirst and Princess Diana, the book captures the energetic and sometimes provocative experimentation that typified the final decade of the twentieth century.

Key Features

• Considers a wide-ranging assortment of fiction, poetry, drama and film of the 1990s within the broader political and cultural context of Great Britain
• Supplies a thematically oriented account of major aspects of contemporary literature, including ethnicity, class, celebrity and speculative work
• Deals with literature from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England, both in relation to each other and within the larger cultural environment of Great Britain
• Presents a theoretically informed argument integrated with close critical analyses of mainstream and marginal texts

Back Jacket

The Edinburgh History of Twentieth-Century Literature in Britain General Editor: Randall Stevenson How did literature develop in Britain in the twentieth century? How did it interact with the wider culture and history of the times? Each of the ten volumes in this series analyses the literary developments of a single decade in their widest contexts. Literature of the 1990s: Endings and Beginnings Peter Marks 'In this stylish and piercingly insightful survey of '90s writing, Peter Marks conveys the shock of the no longer new. A period takes shape in his pages that is no longer ours and that we may care about more, and differently, because, as he shows so well, it has its own explosive and eccentric coherence.' Bruce Robbins, Columbia University Provides a synoptic view of the exuberant and challenging fiction, poetry and drama created in 1990s Britain Placing literary creativity within a changing cultural and political context that saw the end of Margaret Thatcher and rise of New Labour, this book offers fresh interpretations of mainstream and marginal works from all parts of Britain. Based on a framework of thematically-structured accounts, the individual chapters cover national identity, ethnicity, sexuality, class, celebrity culture, history and fantasy in literature from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England. It offers its readers a comprehensive view of the changing and challenging literary landscape in this period, critically examining the fiction, poetry and drama as well as representative films, art and music. The book captures the energetic and sometimes provocative experimentation that typified the final decade of the twentieth century Peter Marks is Professor of English at the University of Sydney. He is the author of George Orwell the Essayist: Literature, Politics and the Periodical Culture (2011) and Imagining Surveillance: Eutopian and Dystopian Literature and Film (2015). Cover image: ad_krikorian/iStockphoto.com Cover design: Michael Chatfield [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-1159-2 Barcode

Author Biography

Peter Marks is Professor of English at the University of Sydney.