ABSTRACT
This chapter presents concise biographical information of Adam Thorpe and analysis of their major works and themes. One of the most difficult tasks for a contemporary English novelist is to investigate what constitutes Englishness. The images offered by political parties or the media are banal and unconvincing. The glib formulations of politicians and journalists are embarrassing rather than enlightening. Warm beer, cricket on the village green and spinsters cycling home from evensong for the nostalgists. Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956 and brought up in India and Cameroon. He went to a traditional English public school, Marlborough, and then on to Oxford to read English. Thorpe published his first novel, Ulverton, in 1992. In the book he undertook a multifaceted exploration of English history by inventing a village in the South West, the eponymous Ulverton, and by constructing twelve very different, demanding narratives set in the village at different times in its history from 1650 to 1988.
