The Oxford History of the Novel in English

Abstract

This book explores the history of English-language prose fiction in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the South Pacific since 1950, focusing not only on the ‘literary’ novel, but also on the processes of production, distribution and reception, and on popular fiction and the fictional sub-genres, as well as the work of major novelists, movements, and tendencies. After World War II, the rise of cultural nationalism in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand and movements towards independence in the Pacific islands, together with the turn toward multiculturalism and transnationalism in the postcolonial world, called into question the standard national frames for literary history. This resulted in an increasing recognition of formerly marginalised peoples and a repositioning of these national literatures in a world literary context. The book explores the implications of such radical change through its focus on the English-language novel and the short story, which model the crises in evolving narratives of nationhood and the reinvention of postcolonial identities. Shifting socio-political and cultural contexts and their effects on novels and novelists, together with shifts in fictional modes (realism, modernism, the Gothic, postmodernism) are traced across these different regions. Attention is given not only to major authors but also to Indigenous and multicultural fiction, children's and young adult novels, and popular fiction. Chapters on book publishing, critical reception, and literary histories for all four areas are included in this innovative presentation of a Trans-Pacific postcolonial history of the novel.