ABSTRACT
Contemporary literature, as the term suggests, is defined by its relationship to the condition of being contemporary, or contemporaneity. We can debate the parameters by which we choose to periodise the contemporary: does it, for instance, begin in 1945 with the beginning of the postwar period and its welfarism, immigration and economic stability? Or should we consider the neoliberal recalibration of economic policy with Thatcher and Reagan as building the bedrock for our financial, political and economic situation today? Perhaps we wish to take a more millennial approach and suggest that contemporary literature can be periodised from 2000 onwards, with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 marking the beginning of a new century with its increasingly globalised geopolitics, the rise of stateless networked terrorist organisations and the transnational pressures upon individual nation-states provoked by international financial transactions and the ethical, legal and market frontiers of the digital realm.
