A lucid exploration of the key features of postmodernism and the most important authors from Beckett to DeLillo.

Bran Nicol is a Reader in Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of Portsmouth.

Preface: reading postmodern fiction; 1. Postmodern fiction: theory and practice; 2. Early postmodern fiction: Beckett, Borges, and Burroughs; 3. 1960s and 1970s US metafiction: Coover, Barth, Nabokov, Vonnegut, Pynchon; 4. The postmodern historical novel: Fowles, Barnes, Swift; 5. Postmodern-postcolonial fiction; 6. Postmodern fiction by women: Carter, Atwood, Acker; 7. Two postmodern genres: cyberpunk and 'metaphysical' detective fiction; 8. Fiction of the 'postmodern condition': Ballard, DeLillo, Ellis; Bibliography; Index.