Gives a comprehensive critical picture of the development of British fiction from the election of Thatcher to the present.

Introduction: framing the present Peter Boxall; Part I. Overview: 1. The 1980s Bridget Chalk; 2. The 1990s Pieter Vermeulen; 3. Post-millennial literature Leigh Wilson; Part II. New Formations: 4. British writing and the limits of the human Gabriele Griffin; 5. Form and fiction, 1980-the present Kevin Brazil; 6. Institutions of fiction Caroline Wintersgill; Part III. Genres and Movements: 7. Late modernism, postmodernism, and after Martin Eve; 8. Experiment and the genre novel Caroline Edwards; 9. Transgression and experimentation: the historical novel Jerome de Groot; 10. Film and fiction from 1980-the present Petra Rau; Part IV. Contexts: 11. The Mid Atlantics Ben Masters; 12. Fiction, religion and freedom of speech, from 'the Rushdie affair' to 7/7 Stephen Morton; 13. Sexual dissidence and British writing Rebecca Pohl; 14. British cosmopolitanism after 1980 Patrick Deer; Conclusion: imagining the future Peter Boxall.