Julian Barnes: Contemporary Critical Perspectives: Contemporary Critical Perspectives

Contributions by top Barnes scholars and key figures within the contemporary field.

Sebastian Groes is Lecturer in English Literature at Roehampton University, UK.Peter Childs is Professor of Modern English Literature at the University of Gloucestershire. He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy in 2004.

Foreword \ Series Editors' Preface \ Acknowledgements \ Contributors \ Chronology of Julian Barnes's Life \ Introduction: Julian Barnes and the Wisdom of Uncertainity Sebastian Groes and Peter Childs \ 1. The Flâneur and the Freeholder: Paris and London in Metroland Matthew Taunton \ 2. Inventing a Way to the Truth: Life and Fiction in Flaubert's Parrot Ryan Roberts \ 3. 'A preference for things Gallic': Julian Barnes and the French Connection Vanessa Guignery \ 4. 'An Ordinary Piece of Magic': Religion in the Work of Julian Barnes Andrew Tate \ 5. Crossing the Channel: Europe and the Three Uses of France in Julian Barnes's Talking it Over Merritt Moseley \ 6. 'Stranger Than Fiction': an epistolary essay on The Porcupine Dimitrina Kondeva \ 7. England, England and Englishness Richard Bradford \ 8. Matters of Life and Death: The Short Stories of Julian Barnes Peter Childs \ 9. 'All Letters Quoted are Authentic': The Past after Postmodern Fabulation in Julian Barnes's Arthur & George Christine Berberich \ Afterword Andrew Lycett \ References \ Further Reading \ Index

This welcome new assessment of Barnes's ground-breaking work and achievement takes scholarly analysis of his oeuvre to a new level, offering insights into the genesis of some of his novels and a new perspective on his complex uses of historical and biographical fact and fictional invention.