The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing

Cambridge University Press, 1/16/2020
EAN 9781107195448, ISBN10: 1107195446

Hardcover, 700 pages, 22.9 x 15.9 x 4.4 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing provides a comprehensive historical overview of the diverse literary traditions impacting on this field's evolution, from the eighteenth century to the present. Drawing on the expertise of over forty international experts, this book gathers innovative scholarship to look forward to new readings and perspectives, while also focusing on undervalued writers, texts, and research areas. Creating new pathways to engage with the naming of a field that has often been contested, readings of literary texts are interwoven throughout with key political, social, and material contexts. In making visible the diverse influences constituting past and contemporary British literary culture, this Cambridge History makes a unique contribution to British, Commonwealth, postcolonial, transnational, diasporic, and global literary studies, serving both as one of the first major reference works to cover four centuries of black and Asian British literary history and as a compass for future scholarship.

Introduction Susheila Nasta and Mark U. Stein
Part I. New Formations
The Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century
Preface
1. Narratives of resistance in the literary archives of slavery Markman Ellis
2. Writer-travellers and fugitives
insider-outsiders Antoinette Burton
3. Exoticisations of the self
the first 'Buddha of Suburbia' Mona Narain
4. Black people of letters
authors, activists, abolitionists Vincent Carretta
5. Engaging the public
photo- and print-journalism Pallavi Rastogi
Part II. Uneven Histories
Charting Terrains in the Twentieth Century
Preface
Section 1. Global Locals
Making Tracks at the Heart of Empire
6. Between the wars
Caribbean, Pan-African, and Asian networks Delia Jarrett-Macauley and Susheila Nasta
7. Mobile modernisms
black and Asian articulations Anna Snaith
8. Establishing material platforms in literary culture in the 1930s and 1940s Ruvani Ranasinha
9. Transnational cultural exchange
the BBC as contact zone James Procter
10. Political autobiography and life-writing
Gandhi, Nehru, Kenyatta, and Naidu Javed Majeed
11. Staging early black and Asian drama in Britain Colin Chambers
Section 2. Disappointed Citizens
The Pains and Pleasures of Exile
12. Looking back, looking forward
revisiting the Windrush myth Alison Donnell
13. Double displacements, diasporic attachments
location and accommodation J. Dillon Brown
14. Wide-angled modernities and alternative metropolitan imaginaries Mpalive-Hangson Msiska
15. Forging collective identities
the Caribbean artists movement and the emergence of black Britain Chris Campbell
16. Breaking new ground
many tongues, many forms Ashok Bery
17. The lure of postwar London
networks of people, print, and organisations Gail Low
18. Looking beyond, shifting the gaze
writers in motion Bénédicte Ledent
Section 3. Here to Stay
Forging Dynamic Alliances
19. Sonic solidarities
the dissenting voices of dub Henghameh Saroukhani
20. Vernacular voices
fashioning idiom and poetic form Sarah Lawson Welsh
21. Narratives of survival
social realism and civil rights Chris Weedon
22. Black and Asian British theatre taking the stage
from the 1950s to the millennium Meenakshi Ponnuswami
23. The writer and the critic
conversations between literature and theory Vijay Mishra
24. Forging connections
anthologies, collectives, and the politics of inclusion Nicola L. Abram
25. Reading the 'black' in the 'Union Jack'
institutionalising black and Asian British writing Roger Bromley
Part III. Writing the Contemporary
Preface
Section 4. Looking Back, Looking Forward
26. Diasporic translocations
many homes, multiple forms Peter Morey
27. Reinventing the nation
black and Asian British representations John McLeod
28. Reclaiming the past
Black and Asian British genealogies Tobias Döring
29. Expanding realism, thinking new worlds Tabish Khair
30. Writing lives, inventing selves
Black and Asian women's life-writing Ole Birk Laursen
31. Black and Asian women's poetry
writing across generations Denise deCaires Narain
Section 5. Framing New Visions
32. Through a different lens
drama, film, new media, and television Florian Stadtler
33. Children's literature and the construction of contemporary multicultures Susanne Reichl
34. Redefining the boundaries
black and Asian queer desire Kate Houlden
35. Prizing otherness
black and Asian British writing in the global marketplace Sarah Brouillette and John R. Coleman
36. Frontline fictions
popular forms from crime to grime Felipe Espinoza Garrido and Julian Wacker
37. Reimagining Africa
contemporary figurations by African Britons Madhu Krishnan
38. Post-secular perspectives
writing and fundamentalisms Rehana Ahmed
39. Post-ethnicity and the politics of positionality Sara Upstone
Select bibliography
Index.