Contemporary American Fiction: An Introduction to American Fiction since 1970 - Softcover

Millard, Kenneth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198711786 ISBN 13: 9780198711780

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Contemporary American Fiction provides an introduction to American fiction since 1970. Offering substantial and detailed interpretations of more than thirty texts by thirty different writers, Millard combines them in an innovative critical structure designed to promote debates on cultural politics and aesthetic value. The book is the first of its kind to offer a wide-ranging survey of recent developments in the fiction of the United States. Recent novels by established writers such as John Updike and Philip Roth are analyzed alongside the fiction of younger writers such as Gish Jen and Sherman Alexie. The book's innovative structure encourages new ways of thinking about how American writers might be configured in relation to each other, while providing an analysis of how contemporary fiction has responded to changes in central areas of American life such as the family, the media, technology, and consumerism. Contemporary American Fiction is a superb critical introduction to some of the most exciting fiction of the last thirty years, an eclectic and thorough advertisement for the extraordinary vitality of American fiction at the end of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author:

Kenneth Millard is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh

Review:

`This comparatively slender volume has a lot to offer.. The author provides convincing analysis and fresh observations, which create a 'literary map' for the readers to start their own explorations of vital and diverse US literary development. What's also important, he does this in a clear
language, practically devoid of professional jargon.'
Vladimir Prozorov, Karelian Pedagogical University. American Studies International Vol xxxix, No 2.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0198711786
• ISBN 13: 9780198711780
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336