Conclusion: Genre Revisited

Abstract

This study has identified and explored four new genres that have evolved to accommodate and negotiate the changing face of postcolonial Britain since 1990. It has focussed on the way that notions of Britishness are challenged and rewritten in genre fiction that operates on the borders of mainstream literary fiction in terms of both market consumption and critical attention. I have illustrated ways in which the new genres identified simultaneously challenge and reinscribe both national and generic borders by opening up to postcolonial topics, authors and contexts. British Muslim Bildungsromane, gothic tales of postcolonial England, the subcultural urban novel and multicultural British comedy have been explored as four new genres that interrogate both their generic forebears and traditions and the representations of Britishness that they are generically bound or designed to perpetuate.