Contemporary works of art that remodel the canon not only create complex, hybrid and plural products but also alter our perceptions and understanding of their source texts. This is the dual process, referred to in this volume as "refraction", that the essays collected here set out to discuss and analyse by focusing on the dialectic rapport between postmodernism and the canon. What is sought in many of the essays is a redefinition of postmodernist art and a re-examination of the canon in the light of contemporary epistemology. Given this dual process, this volume will be of value both to everyone interested in contemporary art--particularly fiction, drama and film--and also to readers whose aim it is to promote a better appreciation of canonical British literature.

Contemporary works of art that remodel the canon not only create complex, hybrid and plural products but also alter our perceptions and understanding of their source texts. This is the dual process, referred to in this volume as “refraction”, that the essays collected here set out to discuss and analyse by focusing on the dialectic rapport between postmodernism and the canon. What is sought in many of the essays is a redefinition of postmodernist art and a re-examination of the canon in the light of contemporary epistemology. Given this dual process, this volume will be of value both to everyone interested in contemporary art—particularly fiction, drama and film—and also to readers whose aim it is to promote a better appreciation of canonical British literature.

Drawing on a variety of theoretical approaches including trauma theory, psychoanalysis, genre theory, narrative theory, theories of temporality, cultural theory, and ethics, this book breaks new ground in bringing together trauma and romance, two categories whose collaboration has never been addressed in such a systematic and in-depth way. The volume shows how romance strategies have become an essential component of trauma fiction in general and traumatic realism in particular. It brings to the fore the deconstructive powers of the darker type of romance and its adequacy to perform traumatic acting out and fragmentation. It also zooms in on the variations on the ghost story as medium for the evocation of trans-generational trauma, as well as on the therapeutic drive of romance that favors a narrative presentation of the working-through phase of trauma. Chapters explore various acceptations and extensions of psychic trauma, from the individual to the cultural, analyzing narrative texts that belong in various genres from the ghost story to the misery memoir to the graphic novel. The selection of primary sources allows for a review of leading contemporary British authors such as Peter Ackroyd, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift, Sarah Waters and Jeanette Winterson, and of those less canonical such as Jackie Kay, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Justine Picardie, Peter Roche and Adam Thorpe.

This book visits vulnerability in contemporary British fiction, considering vulnerability in its relation to poetics, politics, ethics, and trauma. Vulnerability and risk have become central issues in contemporary culture, and artistic productions have increasingly made it their responsibility to evoke various types of vulnerabilities, from individual fragilities to economic and political forms of precariousness and dispossession. Informed by trauma studies and the ethics of literature, this book addresses such issues by focusing on the literary evocations of vulnerability and analyzing various aspects of vulnerable form as represented and performed in British narratives, from contemporary classics by Peter Ackroyd, Pat Barker, Anne Enright, Ian McEwan, and Jeanette Winterson, to less canonical texts by Nina Allan, Jon McGregor, and N. Royle. Chapters on romance, elegy, the ghost story, and the state-of-the-nation novel draw on a variety of theoretical approaches from the fields of trauma studies, affect theory, the ethics of alterity, the ethics of care, and the ethics of vulnerability, among others. Showcasing how the contemporary novel is the privileged site of the expression and performance of vulnerability and vulnerable form, the volume broaches a poetics of vulnerability based on categories such as testimony, loss, unknowing, temporal disarray, and performance. On top of providing a book-length evocation of contemporary fictions of vulnerability and vulnerable form, this volume contributes significantly to considerations of the importance of Trauma Studies to Contemporary Literature.

Preliminary material /Editors Ethics and Trauma in Contemporary British Fiction -- INTRODUCTION /JEAN-MICHEL GANTEAU and SUSANA ONEGA -- READING TRAUMA IN PAT BARKER'S REGENERATION TRILOGY /LENA STEVEKER -- THE ETHICAL CLOCK OF TRAUMA IN EVA FIGES' WINTER JOURNEY /SILVIA PELLICER-ORTÍN -- “NOBODY'SMEAT”: REVISITING RAPE AND SEXUAL TRAUMA THROUGH ANGELA CARTER /CHARLEY BAKER -- “A NEW ALGEBRA”: THE POETICS AND ETHICS OF TRAUMA IN J.G. BALLARD'S THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION /JAKOB WINNBERG -- TRAUMA AS THE NEGATION OF AUTONOMY: MICHAEL MOORCOCK'S MOTHER LONDON /JEAN-MICHEL GANTEAU -- WHERE MADNESS LIES: HOLOCAUST REPRESENTATION AND THE ETHICS OF FORM IN MARTIN AMIS' TIME'S ARROW /MARÍA JESÚS MARTÍNEZ-ALFARO -- WORLDWAR II FICTION AND THE ETHICS OF TRAUMA /GERD BAYER -- A TERRIBLE BEAUTY: ETHICS, AESTHETICS AND THE TRAUMA OF GAYNESS IN ALAN HOLLINGHURST'S THE LINE OF BEAUTY /JOSÉ M. YEBRA -- “THE ETERNAL LOOP OF SELF-TORTURE”: ETHICS AND TRAUMA IN IANMCEWAN'S ATONEMENT /GEORGES LETISSIER -- CONJUNCTURES OF UNEASINESS: TRAUMA IN FAY WELDON'S THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY AND IN IAN MCEWAN'S ON CHESIL BEACH /ANGELA LOCATELLI -- REPRESENTING THE CHILD SOLDIER: TRAUMA, POSTCOLONIALISM AND ETHICS IN DELIA JARRETTMACAULEY'SMOSES, CITIZEN AND ME /ANNE WHITEHEAD -- THE TRAUMA PARADIGM AND THE ETHICS OF AFFECT IN JEANETTE WINTERSON'S THE STONE GODS /SUSANA ONEGA -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS /Editors Ethics and Trauma in Contemporary British Fiction -- INDEX /Editors Ethics and Trauma in Contemporary British Fiction.

There are numerous ways to understand failure in literature: failure to produce a work of demonstrable literary merit, or failure to publish a work despite such merit; failure to see something translated, adapted or performed adequately, or indeed to see it translated, adapted or performed at all; failure to establish a connection with the contemporary reading public, failure to please critics, or to charm readers and hence the failure to achieve substantial sales. An author or a literary wor...

This Companion offers a comprehensive account of the influence of contemporary British Black and Asian writing in British culture. While there are a number of anthologies covering Black and Asian literature, there is no volume that comparatively addresses fiction, poetry, plays and performance, and provides critical accounts of the qualities and impact within one book. It charts the distinctive Black and Asian voices within the body of British writing and examines the creative and cultural impact that African, Caribbean and South Asian writers have had on British literature. It analyzes literary works from a broad range of genres, while also covering performance writing and non-fiction. It offers pertinent historical context throughout, and new critical perspectives on such key themes as multiculturalism and evolving cultural identities in contemporary British literature. This Companion explores race, politics, gender, sexuality, identity, amongst other key literary themes in Black and Asian British literature. It will serve as a key resource for scholars, graduates, teachers and students alike.