State of the Novel

Dominic Head is Professor of Modern English Literature in the School of English Studies at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of several books on twentieth-century and contemporary literature, including The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction, 1950–2000 (2002), and, most recently, Ian McEwan (2007). He is also the editor of The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, third edition (2006).

"All these chapters are readable, often stimulating, and full of reference to a range of sources and instances." (Textual Practice, 2009) "Head contemplates the contemporary novel and its readers, scholarly and general, offering a reminder of the form's potential. Serious fiction interrogates social and political issues and plays an important part in the ‘process of acculturation’ and in the formation of identity and understanding of the self.” (CHOICE, March 2009)"The first half of Head's book benefits from a tight focus on analysing the relationship between the contemporary cultural fields on England and the US, and the literary novel genre … .I particularly liked the readings Head offers of the peculiarly British sub-genre of the 'seaside novel' ". (Times Higher Education Supplement, January 2009)

• Introduction. 1. The Post-Consensus Renaissance?2. The Novel and Cultural Life in Britain.3. Assimilating Multiculturalism.4. Terrorism in Transatlantic Perspective.5. Global Futures: Novelists, Critics, Citizens.Notes.Bibliography.Index.