British literature

Twenieth-century Children’s litera­ture

Significant writers of works for children include, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, Rev W Awdry, The Railway Series and A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh. Pro­lific children’s author Enid Blyton chronicled the adven­tures of a group of young children and their dog in The Famous Five. T. H. White wrote the Arthurian fantasy The Once and Future King, the first part being The Sword in the Stone 1938. Mary Norton wrote The Borrowers, featuring tiny people who borrow from humans. Inspi­ration for Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel The Secret Garden. In Kent. Hugh Lofting created the character Doctor Dolittle who appears in a series of twelve books, while Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians featured the villainous Cruella de Vil.

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    21st century literature
    

Dame Hilary Mantel is a highly successful writer of historical novels winning the Booker Prize twice, for Wolf Hall 2009, and Bring Up the Bodies. Julian Barnes (1946­) is another prominent writer and he won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for his book The Sense of an Ending.

The perceived success and promotion of genre fiction au­thors from Scotland provoked controversy in 2009 when
James Kelman criticised, in a speech at the Edinburgh In­ternational Book Festival, the attention afforded to “up­per middle-class young magicians” and “detective fic­tion” by the “Anglocentric” Scottish literary establish­_{ment. .}^[157]
The theatrical landscape has been reconfigured, moving from a single national theatre at the end of the twentieth- century to four as a result of the devolution of cultural _policy.^[158]

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    Literary institutions
    

Original literature continues to be promoted by institu­tions such as the Eisteddfod in Wales and the Welsh Books Council. The Royal Society of Edinburgh includes literature within its sphere of activity. Literature Wales is the Welsh national literature promotion agency and soci­ety of writers,^[159] which administers the Wales Book of the Year award. The imported eisteddfod tradition in the Channel Islands encouraged recitation and performance, a tradition that continues today.

Formed in 1949, the Cheltenham Literature Festival is the longest-running festival of its kind in the world. The Hay Festival in Wales attracts wide interest, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival is the largest fes­tival of its kind in the world.
The Poetry Society publishes and promotes poetry, no­tably through an annual National Poetry Day. World Book Day is observed in Britain and the Crown Depen­dencies on the first Thursday in March annually.

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