Contemporary British Literature

Historical Context
What is meant under “contemporary”
• Post-war literature – referring to the WWII as
the starting point for this literary-historical
category
• From 1975 - … - the election of M.Thatcher as
the leader of the Conservative Party, which
marks a key moment of transition in the
political, social, economic and cultural climate
in GB.
no longer a dominant player on the world stage

• Financial and political leadership moved

decisively to the United States
• The problem of defining the nature of GB’s
relationship with its European neighbours
• The necessity to adjust to a new economic
reality
• Loss of national self-confidence
 From the politics of consensus to the
Thatcherite monetarist policies
• 1978-79 “winter of discontent”
• the reform of the main bodies of the Welfare
State: to dismantle the framework of state-
owned industry; to break the power of the
Trades Unions; to shift responsibility for social
welfare from the state to the individual
• An ideology of individual success and the
accumulation of wealth
 Focus on revitalizing the economy

Keen to promote a competitive, entrepreneurial

society, at times M.Thatcher seemed utterly
unconcerned with social welfare provision.
Such policies, accompanied by a sustained boom
in the world economy in the late 20th C
allowed many people to enjoy a higher
standard of living.
Yet… the feeling persisted that something’s
fundamentally wrong
 Social imbalance

• Conspicuous • A rise of unemployment

consumption in certain (as a result of decline in
quarters that saw the primary industries). The
rise of yuppies (young development of an
and upwardly mobile) impoverished working
class as well as the
development of the
resistance movement
 Political issues and
the topic of Thatcherism in literature
• Criticism of the Thatcher government’s
policies: Ian Sinclair (“Downriver”, 1991),
Jonathan Coe (“What a Carve Up”, 1994; “The
Closed Circle”, 2004).
• Ambivalent treatment of Thatcherism: Alan
Hollinghurst (“The Line of Beauty”, 2004), Will
Self (“Dorian”, 2002)
 What political events formed topics in
contemporary British fiction
• the impending nuclear WWIII, the fall of the
Berlin wall, the end of the Cold War, the
terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and
the Pentagon

• Ian McEwan (“Black Dogs”, 1992; “Saturday,

2005”); Monica Ali (“Brick Lane”, 2003); James
Graham Ballard (“Millennium People”, 2003;
“Kingdom Come”, 2006)
 Rethinking of class in cultural terms

• The emergence of Cultural Studies in universities (cultural

critics and writers Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, E.P.
Thompson, Stuart Hall)
• Has Britain become a classless society? This continued debate
and confusion over the subject of class has been addressed by
contemporary writers: John Fowles, Monika Ali, Ian McEwan,
Julian Barnes, Kingsley Amis and others. Novels situated in
working-class life, written by authors belonging to this social
group, such as Alan Sillitoe, John Braine, David Storey and
others.
• Fiction tends to be more is more concerned with such social
issues as gender, ethnicity, youth, national identity…