After the end of WWII English literature deeply changed and widened. Writers became more sober and realistic in the immediate aftermath, losing part of the desire of experimentation had in the period before the war and expressed in novels like Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.
The most famous author of the period is the deeply politicized George Orwell, who condemned totalitarianism, the corruption of power, and the defeat of language in novels like Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Another important writer is William Goulding, who explored metaphysical questions and themes with a style influenced by Modernism. His most celebrated novel is Lord of Flies.
In the 1960's a new cultural movement linked to the crisis of the concept of authority arose : Post-Modernism. In this period many intellectuals put into question the bases of Western culture discovering the absence of truth and of a stable meaning. Furthermore, the difference between high and low art vanished, in order to make possible hybridising various elements from different contexts. A Post-Modern trend in fiction was fantasy, expressed by J.R.Tolkien in The Lord of The Rings. This trend later evolved in the ‘magic realism' expressed by Angela Carter. Therefore, reflexive novels took root in this period with books like The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles and Nice Work by David Lodge.
Furthermore, many young writers like Ian McEwan explored the grotesque and the forbidden, whereas others modified history. Also, a large number of Post-Modern writers, as A.S.Byatt, tried to convey with new narrative devices and with the hybridation of styles the contemporary cultural crisis
Another important event is the arose of the feminist novel, with many women writers focused on questioning their position and on finding a better way to express themselves.
Therefore literary festival and book prizes widespread and influenced readers' choice, like the Booker Prize.