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The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010) by Deirdre Osborne (Editor) (view source)
Revision as of 10:37, 6 October 2020
, 10:37, 6 October 2020no edit summary
{{infobox infobox1
|title=The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010)
|sort=Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature (1945–2010)
|pages=280
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|date=October 2016
|isbn=1316504808
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Covering the post-WWII period of immigration and the formation of a multicultural Britain, the time period of this collection stops in 2010, just short of the Brexit referendum. Reading in 2017, this seems apposite and I certainly feel as though my country is in a period of crisis and flux. What will emerge once Brexit is all over is anybody's guess but we can be sure that the rising levels of xenophobia and nativism will have an effect on the cultural output of British black and Asian creatives and thinkers. It's a punctuation point, right?
I watched a [http://www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/Videos-Podcasts/Why-did-Trump-win-Overcoming-Class-Cluelessness-in-America podcast] the other day at the LSE by an American legal scholar and she said that she felt black Americans have an instinctive understanding of structural inequality that white Americans simply do not. I think this is also true of Britain, despite our obsession with class, and I think we also will do well to turn to the contributions of black and Asian writers and performers to understand not just race but also politics, identity and the mechanisms that create the society we live in and . And, most importantly, the cultural riches that rise up to interrogate them.
For lay readers, there is a lot of academic lingo in ''The Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian Literature'' and its essays will sometimes feel rather opaque. But it's well worth the effort because the result is to see and consider the literary contribution of black and Asian communities as central to the British cultural landscape, not an adjunct to it. In this, it is an important volume, and a valuable resource. I found it interesting, challenging, and impactful. So thanks to [[http://twitter.com/BlackWriteGold @BlackWriteGold]] for the opportunity to read it.
Recommended.
You may also be interested in [[The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of London by Laurence Manley (editor)]] and [[The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard Kipling by Howard J Booth (editor)]].
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