Angry Young Men

The Angry Young Men were a group of British novelists and playwrights active in the 1950s whose literature was a protest against middle-class manners and rigid class distinctions. They championed and sympathized with the lower class, from which some of them came. Most representative of the group are Kingsley Amis, John Osborne, Alan Sillitoe, Keith Waterhouse, Colin Wilson, John Braine, and Shelagh Delaney. The term is taken from the title of Leslie Allen Paul's autobiography, Angry Young Man (1951), but is often associated with Osborne's popular play Look Back in Anger (1956). Its brooding, volatile anti-hero, Jimmy Porter, best depicted the mood of the group.

appears in:

• "The World is Full of Angry Young Men" (on Rag And Bone Buffet)

further reading:

• What the Angry Young Men were angry about!