Poverty and inequality have gained a new public presence in the United Kingdom. Literature, and particularly narrative literature, (re-)configures how people think, feel and behave in relation to poverty. This makes the analysis of poverty-themed fiction an important aspect in the new transdisciplinary field of poverty studies.

Barbara Korte is Professor of English Literature at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Her books include English Travel Writing from Pilgrimages to Postcolonial Explorations (2000) and she is editor of The Penguin Book of First World War Stories (2007).

Georg Zipp is an academic researcher at the University of Freiburg, Germany. His study on poverty in Contemporary Caribbean fiction is forthcoming.