Retroland: A Reader’s Guide to the Dazzling Diversity of Modern Fiction

This book focuses on literature written in English since 1970. Kemp (H.G. Wells and the Culminating Ape) notes that many of these works tend to remain fixated on the past. As the chief fiction critic for the Sunday Times, Kemp has extensive knowledge of the literature he examines. In this well-researched book, he focuses on British literature but also includes authors from North America, India, Africa, Australasia, and East Asia. The author divides this book into five sections based on particular motifs or writings over the past 50 years: the imperial past, the personal past, the resurgence of historical fiction, using past literary works as material for modern literature, and future-gazing novelists. Kemp provides an in-depth examination of an extensive array of writers and literary works, including Barnes, Drabble, Golding, Ishiguro, McEwan, Morrison, Naipaul, Rowling, Rushdie, and Vidal. The analyses of works by Atwood, Mantel, and Wolfe are particularly insightful and spot-on. Kemp offers a concise overview of particular works, cites pertinent passages, and expertly parses relevant text and themes, often with wit or hilarious asides.