The Literary Cold War, 1945 to Vietnam

Abstract

This book is a study of the psychological and cultural impact of the Cold War on the imaginations of citizens in the UK and US. It examines writers working at the hazy borders between aesthetic project and political allegory, with specific attention being paid to Vladimir Nabokov and Graham Greene as Cold War writers. The book looks at the special relationship as a form of paranoid plotline governing key Anglo-American texts from Storm Jameson to Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, as well as examining the figure of the non-aligned neutral observer caught up in the sacrificial triangles structuring Cold War fantasy. The book aims to consolidate and define a new emergent field in literary studies, the literary Cold War, following the lead of prominent historians of the period. It looks at leading Anglo-American writers in terms of the Cold War as a psychological and fantasy phenomenon. It provides significant readings of key post-war writers.

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