Brexlit: British Literature and the European Project
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Overview
Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in the summer of 2016 came as a shock to many observers. But writers had long been exploring anxieties and fractures in British society – from Euroscepticism, to immigration, to devolution, to post-truth narratives – that came to the fore in the Brexit campaign and its aftermath.
Reading these tensions back into contemporary British writing, Kristian Shaw coins the term Brexlit to deliver the first in-depth study of how writers engaged with these issues before and after the referendum result. Examining the work of over a hundred British authors, including Julian Barnes, Jonathan Coe, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ali Smith, as well as popular fiction by Andrew Marr and Stanley Johnson, Brexlit explores how a new and urgent genre of post-Brexit fiction is beginning to emerge.
Explores how 21st-century British literature has engaged with the issues that dominated the Brexit referendum, from immigration and post-truth narratives, to English and devolution.
The first in-depth scholarly study of how 21st-century British fiction has grappled with the central issues of Brexit
Covers the work of a wide range of writers, including: Julian Barnes, China Mieville, Ali Smith, Sanjeev Sahota, Nicola Barker and Zadie Smith
Explores key themes of the Brexit debate, including Englishness, devolution, immigration, cosmopolitanism and post-truth narratives
Introduction: The European Question
1) An Imperfect Union: British Eurosceptic Fictions
2) This Blessed Plot: The English Revolt
3) The Disunited Kingdom: Politics of Devolution
4) Fortress Britain: The Great Immigration Debate
5)L’espirit de L’escalier: Post-Brexit Fictions
Conclusion: Life After Europe
Bibliography
Index
Brexlit is as much a well-researched book about Britain in Europe (from a political, institutional, economic and social perspective) as an extensive study of British literature and the European project from the mid-twentieth century to the present moment. The detailed developments on history and context are very useful for understanding the motivations for the Leave vote and the background to the novels, short stories, plays and poems examined. The book is a very solid contribution to the emerging field of Brexlit literature.
Brexlit is indispensable for anyone thinking about Britain’s contemporary literature and politics. Shaw tracks the marginal, at first, and then central issues of Europe and national identity through Eurosceptic fictions, representations of Englishness, devolution, migration and responses to Brexit. Lucidly written with astute, insightful critical analyses and an outstanding grasp of the political context, this is the best literary guide to ’Brexitland’.
- Title: Brexlit: British Literature and the European Project
- Author: Kristian Shaw
- Series: 21st Century Genre Fiction
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 272
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350090859, 9781350225817, 1350225819, 1350090859
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350090859
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T10:31:24Z
Kristian Shaw is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Lincoln, UK. He is the author of Cosmopolitanism in Twenty-First Century Fiction (2017).