Literature: Contemporary British Fiction

Our first text, The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst will chart the life and afterlife of a fictional British poet of the Great War. We will explore issues surrounding literary biography and the right to privacy in what is a text of great lyrical beauty. Our second text, The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald also concerns a poet, the German Romantic Novalis. Here we will explore ideas relating to the ideal in a richly comic text. Our third text by Ishiguro is also historical, set in postwar Nagasaki and contemporary Britain. It will introduce us to themes of memory and legacy through an eldritch tale, which draws on Japanese ghost stories. Our fourth text is Last Orders by Graham Swift which is a mordantly funny modern pilgrimage. We will conclude with the Booker nominated On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. These texts will allow us to discover the breadth of subjects addressed by British fiction in the last half a century. Each will prompt us to reassess our views of identity constructed from memory and those myths which societies cultivate to explain

themselves. It goes without saying that these texts represent some of the strongest British writers to emerge in recent times. The course promises plenty of lively and stimulating discussions on Wednesday mornings in Richmond.