Black British Literature: Novels of TransformationIn this fascinating book, Mark Stein examines black British literature, centering on a body of work created by British-based writers with African, South Asian, or Caribbean cultural backgrounds. Linking black British literature to the bildungsroman genre, this study examines the transformative potential inscribed in and induced by a heterogeneous body of texts. Capitalizing on their plural cultural attachments, these texts portray and purvey the transformation of post-imperial Britain. Stein locates his wide-ranging analysis in both a historical and a literary context. He argues that a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach is essential to understanding post-colonial culture and society. The book relates black British literature to ongoing debates about cultural diversity, and thereby offers a way of reading a highly popular but as yet relatively uncharted field of cultural production. With the collapse of its empire, with large-scale immigration from former colonies, and with ever-increasing cultural diversity, Britain underwent a fundamental makeover in the second half of the twentieth century. This volume cogently argues that black British literature is not only a commentator on and a reflector of this makeover, but that it is simultaneously an agent that is integral to the processes of cultural and social change. Conceptualizing the novel of transformation, this comprehensive study of British black literature provides a compelling analytic framework for charting these processes. |
From inside the book
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Page xiv
... marked since the 1940s . This chapter of recent British history is related to black British liter- ature . The texts nurtured by this situation are marked by a degree of het- erogeneity that almost resists definition . They are texts by ...
... marked since the 1940s . This chapter of recent British history is related to black British liter- ature . The texts nurtured by this situation are marked by a degree of het- erogeneity that almost resists definition . They are texts by ...
Page 25
... marked by the move from country to city and back which is suggested here . While David Dabydeen's The Intended features a protagonist who comes to London from the country , albeit from Guyana ( see chapter 5 ) , in Andrea Levy's third ...
... marked by the move from country to city and back which is suggested here . While David Dabydeen's The Intended features a protagonist who comes to London from the country , albeit from Guyana ( see chapter 5 ) , in Andrea Levy's third ...
Page 127
... marked out as Riaz's opponent , with images of movement abounding while Shahid's peregrinations are described . Within its dichotomous structure , The Black Album ultimately comes down on the side of tolerance and freedom of speech ...
... marked out as Riaz's opponent , with images of movement abounding while Shahid's peregrinations are described . Within its dichotomous structure , The Black Album ultimately comes down on the side of tolerance and freedom of speech ...
Contents
Part | 3 |
Performative Functions of the Black British Novel | 36 |
Part | 57 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adebayo affiliations African Albion Village background Beautiful Laundrette belonging bildungsroman Black Album black and Asian black British literature black British novel black British writers born Britain British cultural Buddha of Suburbia Caribbean Caryl Phillips chapter colonial context critic Dabydeen 1991a David Dabydeen diaspora Dottie edited Empire England English Equiano ethnic Evaristo example experience father feels fiction film genre Gilroy Guyana Hanif Kureishi hybridity identity immigrant Intimacy Jamaica Karim Amir Kind of Black Lara's Levy Levy's literary London Kills long memoried woman marked Meena memory migrants Monica Ali narrative narrator narrator's Nigeria novel of formation novel of transformation novelist Ofili Oxford parents poem poetry political position post-colonial postethnic Prize protagonist racism reading relationship Rushdie Selected Bibliography Selvon Shahid skin slave social society suggests Syal texts tion travels University V. S. Naipaul voice Wasafiri West Indian Windrush Zadie Smith
References to this book
The Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English C. L. Innes No preview available - 2007 |