This article is focused onEnglish-language literature rather than the literature of England, so that it includes writers from Scotland, Wales, and the whole of Ireland, as well as literature in English from formerBritish colonies. It also includes, to some extent, the United States, though the main article for that isAmerican literature.
Modernism is a major literary movement of the first part of the twentieth-century. The termPostmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature.
Irish writers were especially important in the twentieth-century, includingJames Joyce and laterSamuel Beckett, both central figures in theModernist movement. Americans, like poetsT. S. Eliot andEzra Pound and novelistWilliam Faulkner, were other important modernists. British modernists includeJoseph Conrad,E. M. Forster,Dorothy Richardson,Virginia Woolf, andD. H. Lawrence. In the mid-twentieth-century major writers started to appear in the various countries of the BritishCommonwealth, including severalNobel laureates.
In the early 20th-centuryliterary modernism developed in theEnglish-speaking world due to a general sense of disillusionment with theVictorian era attitudes of certainty, conservatism, and belief in the idea of objective truth.[1] The movement was influenced by the ideas ofCharles Darwin (1809–1882) (On Origin of Species) (1859),Ernst Mach (1838–1916),Henri Bergson (1859–1941),Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900),James G. Frazer (1854–1941),Karl Marx (1818–1883) (Das Kapital, 1867), and the psychoanalytic theories ofSigmund Freud (1856–1939), among others.[2] The continental art movements ofImpressionism, and laterCubism, were also important inspirations for modernist writers.[3] Important literary precursors of modernism, were:Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81) (Crime and Punishment (1866),The Brothers Karamazov (1880);Walt Whitman (1819–1892) (Leaves of Grass) (1855–1891);Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) (Les Fleurs du mal),Rimbaud (1854–1891) (Illuminations, 1874);August Strindberg (1849–1912), especially his later plays.[4]
A major British lyric poet of the first decades of the 20th century wasThomas Hardy (1840–1928). Though not a modernist, Hardy was an important transitional figure between the Victorian era and the 20th century. A major novelist of the late 19th century, Hardy, after the adverse criticism of his last novel,Jude the Obscure, concentrated on publishing poetry. On the other hand, another significant transitional figure between Victorians and modernists, the late-19th-century novelist,Henry James (1843–1916), continued to publish major works into the 20th century. James, born in the US, lived in Europe from 1875, and became a British citizen in 1915.[5] Another immigrant, Polish-born modernist novelistJoseph Conrad (1857–1924) published his first important work,Heart of Darkness, in 1899 andLord Jim in 1900. The American exponent ofNaturalismTheodore Dreiser's (1871–1945)Sister Carrie was also published in 1900.
However, the VictorianGerard Manley Hopkins's (1844–89) highly original poetry was not published until 1918, long after his death, while the career of another major modernist poet, IrishmanW. B. Yeats (1865–1939), began late in the Victorian era. Yeats was one of the foremost figures of20th-century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an IrishSenator for two terms. Yeats was a driving force behind theIrish Literary Revival. In 1923 he was awarded theNobel Prize in Literature, the first Irishman so honoured.[6] The Nobel Prize website argues that Yeats is one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize: these works includeThe Tower (1928) andThe Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).[7]
In addition toW. B. Yeats other important early modernist poets were theAmerican poetsT. S. Eliot (1888–1965) andEzra Pound (1885–1972). Eliot became a British citizen in 1927 but was born and educated in America. His most famous works are: "Prufrock" (1915),The Waste Land (1921) andFour Quartets (1935–1942). Ezra Pound was not only a major poet, first publishing part ofThe Cantos in 1917, but an important mentor for other poets, most significantly in his editorial advice for Eliot's poemThe Waste Land.[8] Other importantAmerican poets writing early in the 20th century wereWilliam Carlos Williams (1883–1963),Robert Frost (1874–1963), who published his first collection in England in 1913, andH.D. (1886–1961).Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), an American expatriate living in Paris, famous for her line "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose," was also an important literary force during this time period. American poetMarianne Moore (1887–1972) published from the 1920s to the 1960s.
But whilemodernism was to become an important literary movement in the early decades of the new century, there were also many fine writers who, like Thomas Hardy, were not modernists. During the early decades of the 20th century theGeorgian poets like Rupert Brooke (1887–1915),Walter de la Mare (1873–1956), andJohn Masefield (1878–1967, Poet Laureate from 1930) maintained a conservative approach to poetry by combining romanticism, sentimentality and hedonism, sandwiched as they were between the Victorian era, with its strict classicism, and Modernism, with its strident rejection of pure aestheticism.Edward Thomas (1878–1917) is sometimes treated as another Georgian poet.[9] Thomas enlisted in 1915 and is one of theFirst World War poets along withWilfred Owen (1893–1918),Rupert Brooke (1887–1915),Isaac Rosenberg (1890–1917),Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) andSiegfried Sassoon (1886–1967).
Irish playwrightsGeorge Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) andJ.M. Synge (1871–1909) were influential in British drama. Shaw's career began in the last decade of the 19th century, while Synge's plays belong to the first decade of the 20th century. Synge's most famous play,The Playboy of the Western World, "caused outrage and riots when it was first performed" in Dublin in 1907.[10] George Bernard Shaw turned theEdwardian theatre into an arena for debate about important political and social issues, like marriage, class, "the morality of armaments and war" and the rights of women.[11] An important dramatist in the 1920s, and later, was IrishmanSeán O'Casey (1880–1964). Also in the 1920s and laterNoël Coward (1899–1973) achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such asHay Fever (1925),Private Lives (1930),Design for Living (1932),Present Laughter (1942) andBlithe Spirit (1941), have remained in the regular theatre repertoire.
Amongst the novelists, afterJoseph Conrad, other important early modernists includeDorothy Richardson (1873–1957), whose novelPointed Roof (1915), is one of the earliest example of thestream of consciousness technique, andD. H. Lawrence (1885–1930), who publishedThe Rainbow in 1915, though it was immediately seized by the police.[12] Then in 1922 IrishmanJames Joyce's important modernist novelUlysses appeared.Ulysses has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement".[13] Set during one day inDublin, in it Joyce creates parallels withHomer'sepic poem theOdyssey.William Faulkner'sThe Sound and the Fury (1929) is another significant modernist novel, that uses thestream of consciousness technique.
Novelists who are not considered modernists include:Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) who was also a successful poet;H. G. Wells (1866–1946);John Galsworthy (1867–1933), (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1932) whose works include a sequence of novels, collectively calledThe Forsyte Saga (1906–21);Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) author ofThe Old Wives' Tale (1908);G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936); andE.M. Forster's (1879–1970), though Forster's work is "frequently regarded as containing both modernist and Victorian elements".[14] H. G. Wells was a prolific author who is now best known for his science fiction novels,[15] most notablyThe War of the Worlds,The Time Machine,The Invisible Man andThe Island of Doctor Moreau all written in the 1890s. Other novels includeKipps (1905) andMr Polly (1910). Forster's most famous work,A Passage to India 1924, reflected challenges to imperialism, while his earlier novels, such asA Room with a View (1908) andHowards End (1910), examined the restrictions and hypocrisy of Edwardian society in England.
Another major work of science fiction, from the early 20th century, isA Voyage to Arcturus by Scottish writerDavid Lindsay, first published in 1920. It combinesfantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by writerColin Wilson as the "greatest novel of the twentieth century",[16] and was a central influence onC. S. Lewis'sSpace Trilogy.[17]
The most popular British writer of the early years of the 20th century was arguablyRudyard Kipling, a highly versatile writer of novels, short stories and poems, and to date the youngest ever recipient of theNobel Prize for Literature (1907). Kipling's works includeThe Jungle Books (1894–95),The Man Who Would Be King andKim (1901), while his inspirational poem "If—" (1895) is a national favourite and a memorable evocation ofVictorianstoicism. Kipling's reputation declined during his lifetime, but more recently postcolonial studies has "rekindled an intense interest in his work, viewing it as both symptomatic and critical of imperialist attitudes".[18] Strongly influenced by his Christian faith,G. K. Chesterton was a prolific and hugely influential writer with a diverse output. His best-known character is the priest-detectiveFather Brown, who appeared only in short stories, whileThe Man Who Was Thursday published in 1908 is arguably his best-known novel. Of his nonfiction,Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1906) was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens's work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars.[19]
The modernist movement continued through the 1920s and 1930s and beyond. During the period between the World Wars, American drama came to maturity, thanks in large part to the works ofEugene O'Neill (1888–1953). O'Neill's experiments with theatrical form and his use of bothNaturalist andExpressionist techniques had a major influence on American dramatists. His best-known plays includeAnna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922),Desire Under the Elms (1924),Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928),Mourning Becomes Electra (1931). In poetryHart Crane publishedThe Bridge in 1930 andE. E. Cummings andWallace Stevens were publishing from the 1920s until the 1950s. Similarly William Faulkner continued to publish until the 1950s and was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1949. However, not all those writing in these years were modernists; among the writers outside the movement were American novelistsTheodore Dreiser,Dos Passos,Ernest Hemingway,Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby 1925), andJohn Steinbeck.
Important British writers between theWorld Wars, include the Scottish poetHugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978), who began publishing in the 1920s, and novelistsVirginia Woolf (1882–1941),E. M. Forster (1879–1970) (A Passage to India, 1924),Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966),Graham Greene (1904–1991),Anthony Powell (1905–2000),P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) (who was not a modernist) andD. H. Lawrence. Lawrence'sLady Chatterley's Lover was published privately in Florence in 1928, though the unexpurgated version was not published in Britain until 1959.[8] Woolf was an influentialfeminist, and a major stylistic innovator associated with thestream-of-consciousness technique in novels likeMrs Dalloway (1925) andTo the Lighthouse (1927). Her 1929 essayA Room of One's Own contains her famous dictum "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction".[20]
In the 1930sW. H. Auden andChristopher Isherwood co-authored verse dramas, of whichThe Ascent of F6 (1936) is the most notable, that owed much toBertolt Brecht.T. S. Eliot had begun this attempt to revive poetic drama withSweeney Agonistes in 1932, and this was followed byThe Rock (1934),Murder in the Cathedral (1935) andFamily Reunion (1939). There were three further plays after the war.In Parenthesis, a modernistepic poem byDavid Jones (1895–1974) first published in 1937, is probably the best known contribution from Wales to theliterature of the First World War.[citation needed]
An important development, beginning in the 1930s and 1940s was a tradition of working class novels actually written by working-class background writers. Among these were coal minerJack Jones,James Hanley, whose father was a stoker and who also went to sea as a young man, and coal minersLewis Jones fromSouth Wales andHarold Heslop fromCounty Durham.[citation needed]
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) published his famousdystopiaBrave New World in 1932, the same year asJohn Cowper Powys'sA Glastonbury Romance.Henry Miller'sTropic of Cancer then appeared in 1934, though it was banned for many years in both Britain and America.[21]Samuel Beckett (1906–89) published his first major work, the novelMurphy in 1938. This same yearGraham Greene's (1904–91) first major novelBrighton Rock was published. Then in 1939James Joyce's publishedFinnegans Wake, in which he creates a special language to express the consciousness of a dreaming character.[22] It was also in 1939 that another Irish modernist poet,W. B. Yeats, died. British poetW. H. Auden was another significant modernist in the 1930s.
Though some have seen modernism ending by around 1939,[23] with regard to English literature, "When (if) modernism petered out and postmodernism began has been contested almost as hotly as when the transition from Victorianism to modernism occurred".[24] In fact a number of modernists were still living and publishing in the 1950s and 1960, includingT. S. Eliot,William Faulkner,Dorothy Richardson, andEzra Pound. Furthermore,Basil Bunting (1900–1985) published little untilBriggflatts in 1965 andSamuel Beckett, born in Ireland in 1906, continued to produce significant works until the 1980s, includingWaiting for Godot (1953),Happy Days (1961),Rockaby (1981), though some view him as apost-modernist.[25]
Among British writers in the 1940s and 1950s were novelistsGraham Greene andAnthony Powell, whose works span the 1930s to the 1980s and poetDylan Thomas, whileEvelyn Waugh, andW. H. Auden continued publishing significant work.
In 1947Malcolm Lowry publishedUnder the Volcano, whileGeorge Orwell's dystopia of totalitarianism,1984, was published in 1949. One of the most influential novels of the immediate post-war period wasWilliam Cooper's naturalisticScenes from Provincial Life, a conscious rejection of the modernist tradition.[26]Graham Greene was a convert to Catholicism and his novels explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world. Notable for an ability to combine serious literary acclaim with broad popularity, his novels includeBrighton Rock (1938),The Power and the Glory (1940),The Heart of the Matter (1948),A Burnt-Out Case (1961), andThe Human Factor (1978). Other novelists writing in the 1950s and later were:Anthony Powell whose twelve-volume cycle of novelsA Dance to the Music of Time, is a comic examination of movements and manners, power and passivity in English political, cultural and military life in the mid-20th century; comic novelistKingsley Amis (1922–1995) is best known for his academic satireLucky Jim (1954);Nobel Prize laureateWilliam Golding'sallegorical novelLord of the Flies 1954, explores how culture created by man fails, using as an example a group of British schoolboys marooned on a deserted island who try to govern themselves, but with disastrous results. PhilosopherIris Murdoch was a prolific writer of novels throughout the second half of the 20th century, that deal especially with sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious, includingUnder the Net (1954),The Black Prince (1973) andThe Green Knight (1993). Scottish writerMuriel Spark pushed the boundaries of realism in her novels. Her first,The Comforters (1957) concerns a woman who becomes aware that she is a character in a novel;The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), at times takes the reader briefly into the distant future, to see the various fates that befall its characters.Anthony Burgess is especially remembered for hisdystopian novelA Clockwork Orange (1962), set in the not-too-distant future, which was made into a film byStanley Kubrick in 1971. In the entirely different genre ofGothic fantasyMervyn Peake (1911–1968) published his highly successfulGormenghast trilogy between 1946 and 1959.
One of Penguin Books' most successful publications in the 1970s wasRichard Adams'sheroic fantasyWatership Down (1972). Evokingepic themes, it recounts the odyssey of a group of rabbits seeking to establish a new home. Another successful novel of the same era wasJohn Fowles'The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), with a narrator who freely admits the fictive nature of his story, and its famous alternative endings. This was made into a film in 1981 with a screenplay byHarold Pinter.Angela Carter (1940–1992) was a novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works. Her novels include,The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman 1972 andNights at the Circus 1984.Margaret Drabble (born 1939) is a novelist, biographer and critic, who published from the 1960s into the 21st century. Her older sister,A. S. Byatt (born 1936) is best known forPossession published in 1990.
Martin Amis (born 1949) is one of the most prominent of contemporary British novelists. His best-known novels areMoney (1984) andLondon Fields (1989).Pat Barker (born 1943) has won many awards for her fiction. English novelist and screenwriterIan McEwan (born 1948) is another of contemporary Britain's most highly regarded writers. His works includeThe Cement Garden (1978) andEnduring Love (1997), which was made into a film. In 1998 McEwan won theMan Booker Prize withAmsterdam.Atonement (2001) was made into anOscar-winning film. McEwan was awarded theJerusalem Prize in 2011.Zadie Smith'sWhitbread Book Award winning novelWhite Teeth (2000), mixes pathos and humour, focusing on the later lives of two war time friends in London.Julian Barnes (born 1946) is another successful living novelist, who won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for his bookThe Sense of an Ending, while three of his earlier books were shortlisted for the Booker Prize:Flaubert's Parrot (1984),England, England (1998), andArthur & George (2005). He has also written crime fiction under the pseudonymDan Kavanagh.[27]
Two significant contemporary Irish novelists areJohn Banville (born 1945) andColm Tóibín (born 1955).Banville is also anadapter of dramas, a screenwriter,[28] and a writer of detective novels under the pseudonymBenjamin Black. Banville has won numerous awards:The Book of Evidence was shortlisted for theBooker Prize and won theGuinness Peat Aviation award in 1989; his eighteenth novel,The Sea, won the Booker Prize in 2005; he was awarded theFranz Kafka Prize in 2011.Colm Tóibín (Irish, 1955) is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet.
Scotland has in the late 20th century produced several important novelists, includingJames Kelman, who like Samuel Beckett can create humour out of the most grim situations.How Late it Was, How Late, 1994, won theBooker Prize that year;A. L. Kennedy's 2007 novelDay was named Book of the Year in theCosta Book Awards.[29] In 2007 she won theAustrian State Prize for European Literature;[30]Alasdair Gray'sLanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) is adystopian fantasy set in a surreal version ofGlasgow called Unthank.[31]
An important cultural movement in the British theatre which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s wasKitchen sink realism (or "kitchen sink drama"), a term coined to describe art (the term itself derives from an expressionist painting byJohn Bratby), novels, film andtelevision plays. The termangry young men was often applied[by whom?] to members of this artistic movement. It used a style ofsocial realism which depicts the domestic lives of the working class, to explore social issues and political issues. Thedrawing room plays of the post war period, typical of dramatists likeTerence Rattigan andNoël Coward were challenged in the 1950s by theseAngry Young Men, in plays likeJohn Osborne'sLook Back in Anger (1956).Arnold Wesker andNell Dunn also brought social concerns to the stage.[citation needed]
Again in the 1950s, theabsurdist playWaiting for Godot (1955) (originallyEn attendant Godot, 1952), by Irish writerSamuel Beckett profoundly affected British drama. TheTheatre of the Absurd influencedHarold Pinter (1930–2008), author of (The Birthday Party, 1958), whose works are often characterised by menace or claustrophobia. Beckett also influencedTom Stoppard (born 1937) (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, 1966). Stoppard's works are however also notable for their high-spirited wit and the great range of intellectual issues which he tackles in different plays. Both Pinter and Stoppard continued to have new plays produced into the 1990s.Michael Frayn (born 1933) is among other playwrights noted for their use of language and ideas. He is also a novelist. He has written a number of novels, including,The Tin Men, which won the 1966Somerset Maugham Award),The Russian Interpreter (1967,Hawthornden Prize), andSpies, which won theWhitbread Prize for Fiction in 2002.
Other Important playwrights whose careers began later in the century are:Caryl Churchill (Top Girls, 1982) andAlan Ayckbourn (Absurd Person Singular, 1972).[32]
An important new element in the world of British drama, from the beginnings of radio in the 1920s, was the commissioning of plays, or the adaption of existing plays, by BBC radio. This was especially important in the 1950s and 1960s (and from the 1960s for television). Many major British playwrights in fact, either effectively began their careers with the BBC, or had works adapted for radio. Most of playwrightCaryl Churchill's early experiences with professional drama production were as a radio playwright and, starting in 1962 withThe Ants, there were nine productions with BBC radio drama up until 1973 when her stage work began to be recognised at theRoyal Court Theatre.[33]Joe Orton's dramatic debut in 1963 was the radio playThe Ruffian on the Stair, which was broadcast on 31 August 1964.[34]Tom Stoppard's "first professional production was in the fifteen-minuteJust Before Midnight programme on BBC Radio, which showcased new dramatists".[34]John Mortimer made his radio debut as a dramatist in 1955, with his adaptation of his own novelLike Men Betrayed for theBBCLight Programme. But he made his debut as an original playwright withThe Dock Brief, starringMichael Hordern as a hapless barrister, first broadcast in 1957 onBBC Radio'sThird Programme, later televised with the same cast, and subsequently presented in a double bill withWhat Shall We Tell Caroline? at theLyric Hammersmith in April 1958, before transferring to theGarrick Theatre. Mortimer is most famous forRumpole of the Bailey aBritish television series which starredLeo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients. It has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.[35][36]
Other notable radio dramatists includedBrendan Behan, and novelistAngela Carter. NovelistSusan Hill also wrote for BBC radio, from the early 1970s.[37] Irish playwrightBrendan Behan, author ofThe Quare Fellow (1954), was commissioned by the BBC to write a radio playThe Big House (1956); prior to this he had written two playsMoving OutandA Garden Party for Irish radio.[38]
Among the most famous works created for radio, areDylan Thomas'sUnder Milk Wood (1954),Samuel Beckett'sAll That Fall (1957),Harold Pinter'sA Slight Ache (1959) andRobert Bolt'sA Man for All Seasons (1954).[39]Samuel Beckett wrote a number of short radio plays in the 1950s and 1960s, and later for television. Beckett's radio playEmbers was first broadcast on theBBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, and won the RAI prize at thePrix Italia awards later that year.[40]
Major poets like T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas were still publishing in this period. ThoughW. H. Auden's (1907–1973) career began in the 1930s and 1940s he published several volumes in the 1950s and 1960s. His stature in modern literature has been contested, but probably the most common critical view from the 1930s onward ranked him as one of the three major twentieth-century British poets, and heir to Eliot and Yeats.[41]Stephen Spender (1909 – 1995)), whose career began in the 1930s, was another important poet.
New poets starting their careers in the 1950s and 1960s includePhilip Larkin (1922–1985) (The Whitsun Weddings, 1964),Ted Hughes (1930–1998) (The Hawk in the Rain, 1957) and Irishman (Northern Ireland)Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) (Death of a Naturalist, 1966). Northern Ireland has also produced a number of other significant poets, includingDerek Mahon andPaul Muldoon. In the 1960s and 1970sMartian poetry aimed to break the grip of 'the familiar', by describing ordinary things in unfamiliar ways, as though, for example, through the eyes of a Martian. Poets most closely associated with it areCraig Raine andChristopher Reid.Martin Amis, an important contemporary novelist, carried thisdefamiliarisation into fiction.
Another literary movement in this period was theBritish Poetry Revival, a wide-reaching collection of groupings and subgroupings which embracesperformance,sound andconcrete poetry. Leading poets associated with this movement includeJ. H. Prynne,Eric Mottram,Tom Raworth,Denise Riley andLee Harwood.[42] TheMersey Beat poets wereAdrian Henri,Brian Patten andRoger McGough. Their work was a self-conscious attempt at creating an English equivalent to the Beats. Many of their poems were written in protest against the established social order and, particularly, the threat of nuclear war. Other noteworthy later 20th-century poets are WelshmanR. S. Thomas,Geoffrey Hill,Charles TomlinsonCarol Ann Duffy (Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019) andSimon Armitage, the current laureate.[43]Geoffrey Hill (born 1932) is considered one of the most distinguished English poets of his generation,[44] Although frequently described as a "difficult" poet, Hill has retorted that supposedly difficult poetry can be "the most democratic because you are doing your audience the honour of supposing they are intelligent human beings".[45]Charles Tomlinson (1927–2015) is another important English poet of an older generation, though "since his first publication in 1951, has built a career that has seen more notice in the international scene than in his native England; this may explain, and be explained by, his international vision of poetry".[46] The critic Michael Hennessy has described Tomlinson as "the most international and least provincial English poet of his generation".[47] His poetry has won international recognition and has received many prizes in Europe and the United States.[46]
Doris Lessing fromSouthern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, published her first novelThe Grass is Singing in 1950, after immigrating to England. She initially wrote about her African experiences. Lessing soon became a dominant presence in the English literary scene, frequently publishing right through the century, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007. Her other works include a sequence of five novels collectively calledChildren of Violence (1952–69),The Golden Notebook (1962),The Good Terrorist (1985), and a sequence of five science fiction novels theCanopus in Argos: Archives (1979–83). Indeed, from 1950 on a significant number of major writers came from countries that had over the centuries been settled by the British, other than America which had been producing significant writers from at least theVictorian period. There had of course been a few important works in English prior to 1950 from the thenBritish Empire. The South African writerOlive Schreiner's famous novelThe Story of an African Farm was published in 1883 and New ZealanderKatherine Mansfield published her first collection of short stories,In a German Pension, in 1911. The first major English-language novelist from theIndian sub-continent,R. K. Narayan (1906–2001), began publishing in England in the 1930s, encouraged by English novelistGraham Greene.[48] Caribbean writerJean Rhys's writing career began as early as 1928, though her most famous work,Wide Sargasso Sea, was not published until 1966. South Africa'sAlan Paton's famousCry, the Beloved Country dates from 1948.
Salman Rushdie is among a number of post Second World War writers from the former British colonies who permanently settled in Britain. Rushdie achieved fame withMidnight's Children 1981, which was awarded both theJames Tait Black Memorial Prize andBooker Prize, and was namedBooker of Bookers in 1993. His most controversial novelThe Satanic Verses 1989, was inspired in part by the life of Muhammad.V. S. Naipaul (1932–2018), born inTrinidad, was another immigrant, who wrote among other thingsA House for Mr Biswas (1961) andA Bend in the River (1979). Naipaul won theNobel Prize in Literature.[49] Also from theWest Indies wasGeorge Lamming (1927–2022), who wroteIn the Castle of My Skin (1953), while from Pakistan, cameHanif Kureishi (born 1954), a playwright, screenwriter, filmmaker, novelist and short story writer. His bookThe Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won theWhitbread Award for the best first novel, and was also made into a BBC television series. Another important immigrant writerKazuo Ishiguro (born 1954) was born in Japan, but his parents immigrated to Britain when he was six.[50] His works includeThe Remains of the Day 1989,Never Let Me Go 2005.
From Nigeria a number of writers have achieved an international reputation for works in English, including novelistChinua Achebe (1930–2013), who publishedThings Fall Apart in 1958, as well as playwrightWole Soyinka (born 1934) and novelistBuchi Emecheta (1944–2017). Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986, as did South African novelistNadine Gordimer in 1995. Other South African writers in English are novelistJ. M. Coetzee (Nobel Prize 2003) and playwrightAthol Fugard. Kenya's most internationally renowned author isNgũgĩ wa Thiong'o who has written novels, plays and short stories in English. PoetDerek Walcott, from St Lucia in the Caribbean, was another Nobel Prize winner in 1992. Two Irishmen and an Australian were also winners in the period after 1940: novelist and playwright,Samuel Beckett (1969); poetSeamus Heaney (1995);Patrick White (1973), a major novelist in this period, whose first work was published in 1939. Another noteworthy Australian writer at the end of this period is poetLes Murray. The contemporary Australian novelistPeter Carey (born 1943) is one of only four writers to have won theBooker Prize twice—the others beingJ. G. Farrell,J. M. Coetzee andHilary Mantel.[51]
Among Canadian writers who have achieved an international reputation, are novelist and poetMargaret Atwood, poet, songwriter and novelistLeonard Cohen, short story writerAlice Munro, and more recently poetAnne Carson. Another admired Canadian novelist and poet isMichael Ondaatje, who was born in Sri Lanka.
From 1940 into the 21st century, American playwrights, poets and novelists have continued to be internationally prominent.
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain tendencies in post-World War II literature. It is both a continuation of the experimentation championed by writers of the modernist period (relying heavily, for example, on fragmentation, paradox, questionable narrators, etc.) and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is difficult to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. Among postmodern writers are the AmericansHenry Miller,William S. Burroughs,Joseph Heller,Kurt Vonnegut,Hunter S. Thompson,Truman Capote andThomas Pynchon.
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was a crime writer of novels, short stories and plays, who is best remembered for her 80detective novels as well as her successful plays for the West End theatre. Christie's works, particularly those featuring the detectivesHercule Poirot orMiss Marple, have given her the title "Queen of Crime", and she was one of the most important and innovative writers in this genre. Christie's novels includeMurder on the Orient Express,Death on the Nile andAnd Then There Were None. Another popular writer during the Golden Age of detective fiction wasDorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957). Other recent noteworthy writers in this genre areRuth Rendell,P. D. James and ScotIan Rankin.
Erskine Childers'The Riddle of the Sands (1903), is an early example ofspy fiction. A noted writer in thespy novel genre wasJohn le Carré, while inthriller writing,Ian Fleming created the characterJames Bond 007 in January 1952, while on holiday at his Jamaican estate, Goldeneye. Fleming chronicled Bond's adventures in twelve novels, includingCasino Royale (1953),Live and Let Die (1954),Dr. No (1958),Goldfinger (1959),Thunderball (1961), and nine short story works.
Hungarian-bornEmma Orczy's (1865–1947) original play,The Scarlet Pimpernel, opened in October 1903 at Nottingham'sTheatre Royal but was not a success. However, with a rewritten last act, it opened at theNew Theatre in London in January 1905. The premier of the London production was enthusiastically received by the audience, running 122 performances and enjoying numerous revivals.The Scarlet Pimpernel became a favourite of London audiences, playing more than 2,000 performances and becoming one of the most popular shows staged in England to that date.[citation needed] The novelThe Scarlet Pimpernel was published soon after the play opened and was an immediate success. Orczy gained a following of readers in Britain and throughout the world. The popularity of the novel encouraged her to write a number of sequels for her "reckless daredevil" over the next 35 years. The play was performed to great acclaim in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, while the novel was translated into 16 languages. Subsequently, the story has been adapted for television, film, amusical and other media.
John Buchan (1875–1940) published theadventure novelThe Thirty-Nine Steps in 1915.
The novelistGeorgette Heyer created thehistorical romance genre.
TheKailyard school of Scottish writers, notablyJ. M. Barrie (1869–1937), creator ofPeter Pan (1904), presented an idealised version of society and brought of fantasy and folklore back into fashion. In 1908,Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932) wrote the children's classicThe Wind in the Willows. An informalliterary discussion group associated with the English faculty at the University of Oxford, were the "Inklings". Its leading members were the majorfantasy novelists;C.S. Lewis andJ.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis is especially known forThe Chronicles of Narnia, while Tolkien is best known as the author ofThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings. Another significant writer isAlan Garner author ofElidor (1965), whileTerry Pratchett is a more recent fantasy writer.Roald Dahl rose to prominence with his children'sfantasy novels, such asJames and the Giant Peach andCharlie and the Chocolate Factory, often inspired by experiences from his childhood, which are notable for their often unexpected endings, andJ. K. Rowling author of the highly successfulHarry Potter series andPhilip Pullman famous for hisHis Dark Materials trilogy are other significant authors offantasy novels for younger readers.
Noted writers in the field ofcomic books areNeil Gaiman, andAlan Moore; Gaiman also producesgraphic novels.
In the later decades of the 20th century, the genre of science fiction began to be taken more seriously because of the work of writers such asArthur C. Clarke's (2001: A Space Odyssey),Isaac Asimov,Ursula K. Le Guin,Robert Heinlein,Michael Moorcock andKim Stanley Robinson. Another prominent writer in this genre,Douglas Adams, is particularly associated with the comic science fiction work,The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which began life as a radio series in 1978. Mainstream novelists such asDoris Lessing andMargaret Atwood also wrote works in this genre, while Scottish novelistIan M. Banks has also achieved a reputation as both a writer of traditional and science fiction novels.
