Philip Tew is Professor of English (Post-1900 Literature) at Brunel University, UK, Director of the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing and Director of the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies. His many publications as both author and editor include Reading Zadie Smith: The First Decade and Beyond (Bloomsbury, 2013) and (co-edited with Emily Horton and Leigh Wilson) The 1980s: A Decade of Modern British Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2014).

'To set out to write a poetics of the contemporary novel within the edgy category of 'British' is a doubly ambitious project...As well as offering a more integrative view of the the literary phenomenon than most recent companions and readers, it is not uniquely a critical assessment of the writing experience per se, but a forceful attempt at devising adequate tools to capture the new aesthetic of the novel today.'   'The study merits serious attention from scholars of contemporary studies, providing a refreshing blend of creative and critical reading, with its constant capacity for self-renewal.'   'It should be required reading for scholars working in contemporary writing, and it will be excellent supporting material for graduate students.'

• PrefaceCritical Introduction 1. Contemporary Britishness: Who, What, Why and When? 1. The Fall and Rise of the Middle Classes 1. Urban Spaces and Identities 4. The Past and the Present5. Multiplicities and Hybridity 6. The Post-millenial, 9/11 and the Traumatological7. Epilogue: The Teaching and Study of the Contemporary British NovelAppendix: Granta Best of Young British Novelists 1983, 1993, 2003BibliographyIndex