The Country and The City Redux: Mapping Contemporary Britain in Granta's 2013 "Best of Young British Novelists"

Abstract

Drawing upon the writings of British cultural critic Raymond Williams, this article examines a pervading concern with representations of the city and the countryside as political sites and wider symbols of contextual social and economic shifts in the Granta 2013 list of Best of Young British Novelists. The article argues that the 2013 Granta list examines Williams' legacy from a twenty-first century perspective, offering a range of fictions that represent the rapidly changing socio-political, cultural and economic landscapes of contemporary Britain. Through textual analysis and contextualized readings, it suggests that the novels featured on the 2013 list do not offer a purely pastoral view of Britain, but use the natural world as a platform to stage wider discussions regarding a range of present-day issues.