Fiction for the Non-Believer: A Review of Arthur Bradley and Andrew Tate’s The New Atheist Novel

This review examines Arthur Bradley and Andrew Tate’s 2010 short study of contemporary British fiction, The New Atheist Novel: Fiction, Philosophy and Polemic after 9/11. The book defines a new sub-genre of contemporary fiction, deemed the New Atheist novel, whose practitioners are influenced by or affiliated with the recent rise of New Atheism, an aggressive and media-savvy form of religious criticism. Bradley and Tate define the New Atheist novel, pointing to the New Atheist phenomenon’s potently reciprocal relationship with literature, and then offer lengthy appraisals of four New Atheist novelists: Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Philip Pullman and Salman Rushdie.