In Their Own Words - British Novelists

The interwar years generated self-doubt and ideological crisis as Britain contemplated the devastation of war and the demise of empire which would transform the British novel. Some of the greatest, most innovative works of modern British fiction were written during this period and they have retained their power over the fate and fortune of the novel ever since.

The end of WW2 saw the beginning of the atomic age - what WH Auden coined the Age of Anxiety had begun. The holocaust and the nuclear cloud dominated the sensibility of the period and as political tensions worsened, the mood of anxiety, horror and fear of possible armageddon intensified. A new generation of novelists were on hand to confront and articulate this age.

The third and final part explores the 70s and 80s - a period in which, as Angela Carter put it, there was 'nothing sacred' as the mores of the time were incessantly called into question. Novelists were at the forefront of a new revolution as British fiction was suddenly thrust into the limelight. Acting as agents of provocation, these disparate writers indelibly changed the literary climate.