This issue of the Reviewof Contemporary Fiction is, for the first time, devoted to-but notdevotional toward-contemporary British fiction. Bringing together writers,literary critics, and academics with the aim of challenging fossilizedapproaches to British contemporary fiction, and attesting to the vitality (orotherwise) of the British novel today, contributors such as Stewart Home, ChinaMiéville, Maureen Freely, and Patricia Waugh pose difficult questions about thestatus of the literary in contemporary Britain-where it's been, and where it'sgoing.