During the half-century since 1950, Lindsay Duguid writes in an essay in this collection, 'the lady novelist turned into the woman writer,' the historical novel became respectable once again, crime fiction became respectable for the first time, and the English novel was reborn as the British novel. Indian novelists revealed a 'fondness for identical twins', while angels, giants, babies and women who pass as men grew curiously fashionable. 'In 1999, three British novels and one American novel featured a heroine in a coma.' Stuffed with literary graduates, publishers' offices are increasingly coming up with paradoxical comparisons for dustjackets: 'Brighton Rock written by Charlotte Brontë'; 'the Camus of the backpacking generation'.

LRB 12 December 2002 | PDF Download