The 1980s
Subtitle: a decade of contemporary British fiction
By: edited by Emily Horton, Philip Tew and Leigh Wilson
Series: The decades series
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2014
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9781441126498; 9781441168535; 9781623563509
Subjects: English fiction; History and criticism; LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General
Other titles: Nineteen eighties
Description: "How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1980s shape contemporary British fiction? Setting the fiction squarely within the context of Conservative politics and questions about culture and national identity, this volume reveals how the decade associated with Thatcherism frames the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, and Graham Swift, of Scottish novelists and new diasporic writers. How and why 1980s fiction is a response to particular psychological, social and economic pressures is explored in detail.  Drawing on the rise of individualism and the birth of neo-liberalism, contributors reflect on the tense relations between 1980s politics and realism, and between elegy and satire. Noting the creation of a 'heritage industry' during the decade, the rise of the historical novel is also considered against broader cultural changes.  Viewed from the perspective of more recent theorisations of crisis following both 9/11 and the 21st-century financial crash, this study makes sense of why and how writers of the 1980s constructed fictions in response to this decade's own set of fundamental crises"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.