Black British and British Asian Fiction

This chapter explores some issues in black British and British Asian fiction since the 1980s. It shows certain key characteristics of the white British apprehension of those non-white imperial subjects who, after decolonization, were to arrive, in increasing numbers, on British shores. This chapter takes a sample of five writers — three women and two men — and explores those key recurring themes that give a unity to their otherwise very different novels. Through the work of Caryl Phillips, Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, and Monica Ali, this chapter traces the persistence of issues of race and racism. The chapter also considers the importance of recuperating black history, the rise of identity politics, and the tenacity with which the gaze of the racial Other — whether white on black or black on white — fixes its object in the expectation of certain forms of limiting and supposedly ‘authentic’ behaviour.