The Cambridge Companion to Martin Amis

Over a career spanning fifteen novels, two short story collections, and eight volumes of nonfiction, Sir Martin Amis helped to define his era. Through his published work and public commentaries, his voice featured prominently in the important socio-literary debates of his time. His work contributes to literary discussions about realism, postmodernism, satire, and comedy, and his core themes range across the Holocaust, nuclear anxiety, apocalyptic millennialism and, more recently, the war on terror. His words were rarely without controversy. This Companion identifies the essential elements of Amis's work and then evaluates their potential for longevity. From his earliest publications in the 1970's to his death as one of England's most well-known writers in 2023, Amis was an outspoken critic of social myopia: how societies – and their citizens – continually choose selfishness over altruism, fatalism over improvement, and blindness over enlightenment.