Aesthetics and ethics in twenty-first century British novels - Peter Childs

A fresh set of concerns face the twenty-first century British novelist. In this
study of the four key novelists Zadie Smith, Nadeem Aslam, Hari Kunzru and David
Mitchell, the the changes in narrative approaches and critical directions of a
new post-1989 fiction are explored. Close readings of the writers are
informed by a range of contemporary theorists, critics and commentators to
reveal the emphases of twenty-first century fiction. Terror, fear, consumerism,
multinationalism, and corporatism: the terms circulating in culture and social
networks are evident in Smith's faith in ethical living, Aslam's consideration
of multiculturalism, the novels Kunzru builds around the politics of identity
and in the importance Mitchell places on the interconnectedness of human life.
By putting the emergence of a new British literary dynamic in the context of
ethical as well as global contexts, this study analyzes the transformed
fictional perceptions of a world no longer defined by the stand off of super
powers.