A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction offers an authoritative overview of contemporary British fiction in its social, political, and economic contexts.

• Focuses on the fiction that has emerged since the late 1970s, roughly since the start of the Thatcher era.
• Comprises original essays from major scholars.
• Topics range from the rise and fall of the postcolonial novel to controversies over the celebrity author.
• The emphasis is on the whole fiction scene, from bookstores and prizes to the changing economics of film adaptation.
• Enables students to read contemporary works of British fiction with a much clearer sense of where they fit within British cultural life.

James F. English is Professor and Chair of the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Comic Transactions: Literature, Humor, and the Politics of Community in Twentieth-Century Britain (1994) and The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value (2005).