Beyond postmodernism: London fiction at the millennium
type: CreativeWork
description: This thesis is concerned with an analysis of London fiction at the millennium (leading up to and beyond the year 2000). This study involves an exploration of texts that can in some way be regarded as occupying a space beyond postmodernism. It explores how a selection of contemporary London novels can be considered as "second-wave" or "post-postmodern" in light of their borrowing more from mainstream and classical genres as opposed to formally experimental avant-garde techniques. This investigation is conducted with a specific focus on the London author in order to investigate how novelists utilizes the cultural capital of London as a consistent metaphor in their texts as part of what can be read as an attempt to relocate the marginalized, subjugated or underrepresented character within the culturally dominant. The texts considered here are read in terms of post-postmodern discourse, critically evaluating how this selection of London writers at the millennium are appropriating and adapting mainstream writing styles and genres such as realism, the historical novel and the bildungsroman, as well as characterizations such as that of the heroic. Key novels by Bernardine Evaristo, Mark Haddon, Nick Hornby, Hanif Kureishi, Andrea Levy, Gautam Malkani, Rupert Thomson, and Sarah Waters are considered in the thesis. The millennium provides an apt symbolic opportunity to reflect on British fiction and to consider the direction in which these contemporary authors are moving. As postmodernism has been such a dominant critical perspective throughout much of the twentieth century, it is in light of postmodemist challenges, disruptions and innovations to form that I analyses how texts can be read beyond a postmodem focus on form to instead consider how the writers engage with attempts to "open up" literature but do so with the use of mainstream styles. Chapter One focuses on a discussion of millennial London fiction reimagining key moments from British history. In particular Evaris…
abstract: This thesis is concerned with an analysis of London fiction at the millennium (leading up to and beyond the year 2000). This study involves an exploration of texts that can in some way be regarded as occupying a space beyond postmodernism. It explores how a selection of contemporary London novels can be considered as "second-wave" or "post-postmodern" in light of their borrowing more from mainstream and classical genres as opposed to formally experimental avant-garde techniques. This investigation is conducted with a specific focus on the London author in order to investigate how novelists utilizes the cultural capital of London as a consistent metaphor in their texts as part of what can be read as an attempt to relocate the marginalized, subjugated or underrepresented character within the culturally dominant. The texts considered here are read in terms of post-postmodern discourse, critically evaluating how this selection of London writers at the millennium are appropriating and adapting mainstream writing styles and genres such as realism, the historical novel and the bildungsroman, as well as characterizations such as that of the heroic. Key novels by Bernardine Evaristo, Mark Haddon, Nick Hornby, Hanif Kureishi, Andrea Levy, Gautam Malkani, Rupert Thomson, and Sarah Waters are considered in the thesis. The millennium provides an apt symbolic opportunity to reflect on British fiction and to consider the direction in which these contemporary authors are moving. As postmodernism has been such a dominant critical perspective throughout much of the twentieth century, it is in light of postmodemist challenges, disruptions and innovations to form that I analyses how texts can be read beyond a postmodem focus on form to instead consider how the writers engage with attempts to "open up" literature but do so with the use of mainstream styles. Chapter One focuses on a discussion of millennial London fiction reimagining key moments from British history. In particular Evaris…
author: Allen, Claire
language: eng
date published: 2011-5
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:26:46Z
provider: University of Northampton
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Northampton