Postwar British Fiction

Postwar British Fiction: New Accents and Attitudes by James Gindin offers the first comprehensive account of the striking changes in British literature after 1945. Situating novelists, dramatists, and critics in the turbulence of postwar society, Gindin charts how writers from Alan Sillitoe and Kingsley Amis to Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, and William Golding grappled with class realignments, political disillusionment, and the search for identity. Moving across fiction and drama, the book uncovers how satire, existential uncertainty, and comic understatement became vehicles for articulating the contradictions of a rapidly changing Britain. Attentive to both individual artistry and shared cultural conditions, Gindin demonstrates that “angry young men” and other postwar voices were neither isolated nor opportunistic, but part of a coherent shift toward moral inquiry, iconoclasm, and the affirmation of ordinary life. Postwar British Fiction remains a foundational study for scholars of twentieth-century literature, cultural history, and theater, showing how new tones, techniques, and attitudes transformed the novel and stage into key sites for exploring social fracture and renewal. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.