This lively new volume of essays examines what happens now in 21st century fiction. Fresh theoretical approaches to writers such as Salman Rushdie, David Peace, Margaret Atwood, and Hilary Mantel, and identifications of 21st-century themes, tropes and styles combine to produce a timely critical intervention into genuinely contemporary fiction.

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

This book offers readings of five of the most interesting and original voices to have emerged in Britain since the millennium as they tackle the challenges of portraying the new century. Through close readings of the work of Ali Smith, Andrew O'Hagan, Tom McCarthy, Sarah Hall and Jon McGregor, Daniel Lea opens a window onto the formal and thematic concerns that characterise a literary landscape troubled by both familiar and unfamiliar predicaments. These include questions about the meaning of humanness in an age of digital intercourse; about the need for a return to authenticity in the wake of postmodernism; and about the dislocation of self from the other under neoliberal individualism. By relating its readings of these authors to the wider shifts in contemporary literary criticism, this book offers in-depth analysis of important landmarks of recent fiction and an introduction to the challenges of understanding the literature of our time.

“Cosmopolitanism contains some of the most polished and enviably well-written chapters of literary criticism that have ever come my way. Shaw’s readings are critically informed and theoretically sophisticated, yet at the same time remarkably lucid and clear. This is a work of very fine, well-balanced, and – for a first book – astonishingly mature scholarship.” — Prof Berthold Schoene, Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK “The first study to fully appreciate contemporary literature's engagement with cosmopolitanism. A persuasive and articulate engagement with questions of ethics, community, transnationalism and cultural identity, it's an essential read for anyone interested in the contribution of contemporary fiction to our world today”. — Dr Sara Upstone, Principal Lecturer in English Literature, Kingston University, UK. This study of cosmopolitanism in contemporary British and American fiction identifies several authors who forge new and intensified dialogues between local experience and global flows. The twenty-first century has been marked by an unprecedented intensification in globalisation, transnational mobility and technological change. The theories and values of cosmopolitanism will be argued to provide a direct response to ways of being-in-relation to others and answer urgent fears surrounding cultural convergence. The four chapters examine works by David Mitchell, Zadie Smith, Teju Cole, Dave Eggers and Hari Kunzru. The study will demonstrate how these authors imagine new cosmopolitan modes of belonging and point towards the need for an emergent and affirmative cosmopolitics attuned to the diversity and complexity of twenty-first century globality. The study assumes an interdisciplinary approach and will appeal to literature academics, under-/ postgraduate students, and researchers interested in the culture and politics of contemporary life.

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.

This collection of essays explores current thematic and aesthetic directions in fictional science narratives in different genres, predominantly novels, but also poetry, film, and drama. The ten case studies, covering a range of British and American texts from the late twentieth to the twenty-first centuries, reflect the diversity of representations of science in contemporary fiction, including psychopharmacology and neuropathology, quantum physics and mathematics, biotechnology, genetics, and chemical weaponry. This collection considers how texts engage with science and technology to explore relations between bodies and minds, how such connectivities shape conceptions and narrations of the human, and how the speculative view of science fiction features alongside realist engagements with the Victorian period and modernism. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, contributors offer new insights into narrative engagement with science and its place in life today, in times past, and in times to come.

21st Century Novels: The First Decade brings the most important fictional works of 2000-2009 the last 10 years into view, discussing plot, characters, critical reception and more. Utilizing a global advisory board to ensure broad coverage with curriculum focus, 21st Century Novels appeals to [both students and casual readers who seek to develop a deeper understanding of these works, the set will appeal to multiethnic/multicultural communities and curricula as well], bringing insight to readers of contemporary global literature in English translation. Contextual information supports multidisciplinary approaches to teaching, and teachers will appreciate signed analysis found throughout the set. Narrative sections combine literary analysis with biographical, literary and cultural/historical context, as well as further readings, adaptations, awards and maps. Robust indexing of authors and titles -- by sub-genre, themes, language, literary devices, country, region and more -- facilitate research.