Narrative Desire and Historical Reparations

Examining and explaining the obsession with history in the contemporary British novel, Tim Gauthier here situates three very different authors within that strain. Scrutinizing representative novels from A.S. Byatt, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie, Gauthier frames these historical novels as expressions of narrative desire, and in doing so, illuminates contemporary anxieties and a wide range of discursive strategies utilized to make sense of our present in light of our past. Gauthier reveals contemporary fiction as capable of advocating a viable ethical stance and as a form of authentic commentary, and the representative qualities of these novels serve to highlight themes, concerns and anxieties present in many of the works of each author, and by extension, those of their contemporaries. For academics, scholars and students of contemporary fiction, British fiction and the novel in history, this will be an extremely useful book.