Contemporary Literature and the State

This special edition of Contemporary Literature investigates the connections and dissension between the literary artist and the state. "Contemporary Literature and the State" challenges the critical opposition between the monolithic state and the individual artist.

The volume collects essays on writers as different as Samuel Beckett and Ngozi Adichie and covers historical and geographical contexts from Yorkshire to Singapore, San Francisco to Cape Town.

Featuring new and established critical voices, "Contemporary Literature and the State" is an important new contribution to debates about the politics of literature, coming at a time when state power appears both more arbitrary and more necessary than ever.