Fiction Literature Courses
Study online & in London

Discuss a selection of novels written by women in contemporary British society. Focusing on the 21st century, we consider the concerns of fiction in grappling with representing the now. We will make links between literary texts and social context to consider how fiction might be influenced by and influencing the real world beyond its covers. Texts include Bernardine Evaristo's Mr. Loverman (2013), Jenni Fagan's The Panopticon (2013) and Ali Smith's Hotel World (2002).



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

We will discuss questions of memory, history and genre through readings of three fascinating examples of ‘memoir fiction’: Karl Ove Knausgaard’s A Death in the Family, Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, and Martin Amis’ Inside Story.

What do we want and expect from life stories? On this online literature course we’ll read a selection of fascinating books and extracts, which experiment in different ways to combine stories of personal experience and literary invention. As well as memoirs the course includes ‘autofiction’ – a description for the work of novelists whose material is, explicitly, their own life – and we’ll explore this tricky and sometimes controversial category of writing. We’ll think too about some of the ethical and cultural questions that writing from life can raise, including privacy and a right of reply, and think about factors that may affect a book’s critical reception.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.