Post-War British Fiction: Realism and After

George Orwell feared during the Second World War that the novel was in danger of disappearing as a form. But since 1945 Britain has witnessed the proliferation of diverse modes of fictional writing as well as a range of impressive reflections by practising novelists on the art of fiction. Thismajor new anthology, draws together a variety of novelists' essays and manifestos from the 1940s to the present. It includes some hitherto little-known pieces by writers such as Henry Green, C P Snow, and Wilson Harris; but also contains better known, though still indispensable, statements bywriters such as Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch and William Golding. Very recent essays and interviews by Jeanette Winterson, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Salman Rushdie are also included. This comprehensive anthology not only reveals that the novel is alive and well in Britain but also highlights its excitingheterogeneity in the postwar period.