Twenty-First-Century Fiction
A Critical Introduction

The widespread use of electronic communication at the dawn of the twenty-first century has created a global context for our interactions, transforming the ways we relate to the world and to one another. This critical introduction reads the fiction of the past decade as a response to our contemporary predicament – one that draws on new cultural and technological developments to challenge established notions of democracy, humanity, and national and global sovereignty. Peter Boxall traces formal and thematic similarities in the novels of contemporary writers including Don DeLillo, Margaret Atwood, J. M. Coetzee, Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, W. G. Sebald and Philip Roth, as well as David Mitchell, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dave Eggers, Ali Smith, Amy Waldman and Roberto Bolaño. In doing so, Boxall maps new territory for scholars, students and interested readers of today's literature by exploring how these authors narrate shared cultural life in the new century.

Reviews & endorsements

'… a compelling reading of 21st-century novels … this is a refreshingly current and theoretically nuanced study. Boxall makes a persuasive and always readable case for contemporary fiction in relation to its social, cultural, and political contexts … Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' J. Young, Choice

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Product details

• Date Published: June 2013
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9780521187299
• length: 278 pages

• dimensions: 229 x 152 x 18 mm
• weight: 0.39kg
• contains: 3 b/w illus.
• availability: Available