Summary

Challenges the myths about apathy and smugness surrounding British literature of the period. Alice Ferrebe's lively study rereads the decade and its literature as crucial in twentieth-century British history for its emergent and increasingly complicated politics of difference, as ideas about identity, authority and belonging were tested and contested. By placing a diverse selection of texts alongside those of the established canon of Movement and 'Angry' writing, a literary culture of true diversity and depth is brought into view. The volume characterises the 1950s as a time of confrontation with a range of concerns still avidly debated today, including immigration, education, the challenging behaviour of youth, nuclear threat, the post-industrial and post-imperial legacy, a consumerist economy and a feminist movement hampered by the perceivedly comprehensive nature of its recent success. Contrary to Jimmy Porter's defeatist judgement on his era in John Osborne's 1956 play Look Back in Anger, the volume upholds such concerns as 'good, brave causes' indeed.* Timely reassessment of a decade and its literature too often dismissed as apathetic and uninspiring* Comprehensive contextual coverage, situating texts within the wider cultural, literary and social movements of the era* Close-readings of neglected texts interrogate and extend received judgements on creative activity in the period* Tracing of defining themes across genres and national borders provides an innovative and truly inclusive studyKey Words: 1950s literature, politics of difference, Angry Young Men, Movement, literary history