PostmodernismPostmodernism is a literary movement of post-1950s, a time marked by the cold war and the excesses of consumption. It differs from Modernism by blurring the conventional boundary between "high" and "low" culture, by a completely loosened structure in both time and space, and by multiple openings rather than a closure. It rejects to conform to popular taste and combines heterogeneous elements, making it cater to a more sophisticated readership.

Characterized by an attempt to establish transhistorical or transcultural validity, it claims that search for reality is pointless, as the "real" is conditioned by time, place, race, class, gender, and sexuality. There is no knowledge or experience that is superior or inferior to another.

Developed in the second half of the twentieth century, it is largely influenced by a number of events that marked this period. Genocide that occurred during the Second World War, Soviet gulags, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, mass destruction caused by atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, insecurity of Cold War Era, post colonialism issue, as well as the supremacy of multinational corporations and post-industrialism with new technologies, violence, counter culture and consumer culture shaped the perception of new authors.

While postmodernism had a little relevance to poetry and only a limited influence on modern drama (applied only to the Absurd Theatre), it had a huge impact on fiction, especially to the novel.

Main characteristics: Topics dealing with the complex absurdity of contemporary life - moral and philosophical relativism, loss of faith in political and moral authority, alienation

Employing black humor, parody, grotesque, absurdity, and travesty

Erasing boundaries between "low" and "high" culture

Lack of a grand narrative

Avoiding traditional closure of themes or situations

Condemning commercialism, hedonism, mass production, and economic globalism

Reality represented through language

Stream of ConsciousnessStream of Consciousness is a literary style in which the author follows visual, auditory, tactile, associative, and subliminal impressions and expresses them using "interior monologue" of characters either as a writing technique or as a writing style that mingles thoughts and impressions in an illogical order, and violates grammar norms.

The phrase "stream of consciousness" was first used in 1890 by William James in "Principles of Psychology". In literature it records character's feelings and thoughts through stream of consciousness in attempt to capture all the external and internal forces that influence their psychology at a single moment. Any logical or sequential approach is disregarded.

The first example of this style is considered to be a novel by Edouard Dujardin "Les Lauriers sont Coupes" (We'll to the Woods No More), but the technique itself was pioneered by Dorothy Richardson in Pilgrimage (1915-35) and by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922), and further developed by Virginia Woolf in Mrs Dalloway (1925) and William Faulkner in The Sound and the Fury (1928).

Main characteristics: Recording multifarious thoughts and feelings

Exploring external and internal forces that influence individuals psychology

Disregard of the narrative sequence

Absence of the logical argument

Disassociated leaps in syntax and punctuation

Prose difficult to follow

Science Fiction Science fiction is a literary genre in which fantasy meets possible developments of science and its impact on society. It speculates and comments on political and social concerns in the future.

According to science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, "Science fiction and fantasy is the] realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method." The border between fantasy and science fiction is very blurred, as Science Fiction developed from the Gothic novel, Utopian writing and the exoticism of the adventure. It can also be said that science fiction and fantasy are the same category of writing, the only difference being that fantasy deals with wizards and miracles of the past, and science fiction with the science based miracles of the future. That is why the works of fantasy are often nominated for science fiction awards such as the Hugo and Nebula.

Precursors of the genre include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726). First science-fiction writers are considered to be Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

The expansion of the genre came with the founding of a pulp magazine "Amazing Stories" in 1926, but it gained the reputation of serious fiction in the in the late 1930s, when the magazine "Astounding Science Fiction" published works of such authors as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert Heinlein. After World War II, numerous writers' started dealing with the future Earth, connecting it with the possible consequences of interstellar travel, explorations of intelligent life in other worlds and artificial intelligence, which reinforced the popularity of the genre, not only in literature, but also on radio, TV and film.

Main characteristics: Set in an extraterrestrial civilization or a parallel universe

Depicts the future with the technology not yet invented

Time travel, space travel

Contact with aliens from other worlds

Nuclear warfare, alien invasion

Terraformation, mental and biological, of humans and animals

Evolution of the human race

Humans with extraordinary powers

Style of writing varies from one to another author

Post Colonialism/ Non British LitearatureThe postcolonial style of writing is a branch of post-modern literature concerned with the political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires. It deals with the conflicts between ruler and subject, mainstream and marginalized, oppressors and oppressed and, at the same time, celebrates the suppressed "other," challenging the dominant culture and questioning concepts of established authority.

This literature that has been produced in former colonies reflects changes in the social, political, economic, and cultural practices in freed regions and rebellion against anything that reminds of the colonizer.Once former masters left, new independent countries had to deal, not only with many economic and social issues, such as poverty and lack of education, but also with the aftermath of colonialism. Centuries of maltreatment, complete disrespect and negation of the natives' values and culture alienated the subjugated peoples from their own lands and brought an erosion of their identity. Beliefs established by colonizers that indigenous peoples were savages and that their culture was less important proved to be wrong. The post-colonial authors challenge was to find and re-establish their lost national identity, history and literature, and to define their relationship with the land and language of their former masters.Main characteristics: Interacting with the traditional colonial discourse

Critical look at imperialism and its legacy

Reclaiming the past,

Searching for cultural and personal identity

Self-reflection

Style often ironic

Approach eclectic, political and egalitarian