British Creators of Fiction Facing Reality on September 11, 2001

Résumé

This paper sets out to discuss the opinions on 9/11 expressed in the newspaper The Guardian by two important contemporary novelists, namely Ian McEwan and Martin Amis, shortly after the attacks, attempting to trace the way in which their views on the event that had just taken place constituted a starting point for their fictional works on the matter. Under focus will be: two articles signed by Ian McEwan, “Beyond Belief”, published on September 12th, 2001 and “Only Love and Then Oblivion”, on September 15th, and one by Martin Amis, “Fear and Loathing”, published on September 18th,
2001. An important aspect is that, as Amis puts it in a later article, “the novelists were now being obliged to snap out of their solipsistic daydreams: to attend, as best they could, to the facts of life” (2008: 13). In light of this statement, the paper aims at creating a framework for the subsequent analysis of the fictional works by the same authors, starting from the premise that the subjectivity they express in the press articles is enhanced to a greater extent in literature, where practically everything may be said
under the pretence of being fictional.