The Anti-Fascist Novel in Britain 1923–2023

This book explores the anti-fascist novel in Britain: its origins in activists’ experience, its solutions to questions of how to organise. Some of the works Renton discusses are classics of twentieth-century literature including Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day and Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. Some are or were best-sellers – including Len Deighton’s SS-GB. The novels share certain themes: a central character is radicalised towards fascism and that decision shapes the protagonist’s life for the worse. Alternatively, in a mirror version of the same pattern, a protagonist becomes an anti-fascist and seeks to improve the world around them. Renton explains the real-life history that these novels reflect and the committed anti-fascist politics with which they engage. This book will be of interest to researchers of antifascism and social, cultural, and political history.