Contemporary Fiction and Christianity

Description

Argues against the idea that the 'postmodern condition' of late twentieth and early twenty-first century culture has undermined the close and creative association between religious practice and literature. This study suggests that the novel has become an increasingly vital, dynamic and problematic space for engaging with the sacred.

Andrew Tate is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, UK.

"Andrew Tate has succeeded here in producing a book that is impressively wide-ranging in its theological concerns and precisely focussed in its literary analysis. He asks large questions about the relationship of these two disciplines, questions which he answers with reference to a range of exciting contemporary fiction." - Professor Terence Wright, School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics, Newcastle University, UK. 'Identifying pertinant biblical tropes and subject matter and the lasting influence of more definitely theological writers such as Hawthorne, Buechner and Barth on today's practitioners, there is much assured close reading and pulling together of critical and historical threads . . . a compendious, conceptually sound study which asks good questions.' -- Times Literary Supplement Mention -Chronicle of Higher Education, April 11, 2008 "[Tate's] readings are subtle and invariably interesting...the reader is drawn engagingly into the exploration...Tate's book is an enjoyable and stimulating read, never aggressive of obscure." The Glass, Spring 09 'In its insistence that contemporary literature offers a "space" for theological ideas and images to be explored, often in a sceptical and challenging way, this book is compelling.' University of Edinburgh Journal, June 2010