J. Dillon Brown and Leah Reade Rosenberg (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781628464757
- eISBN:
- 9781628464801
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628464757.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
The first book to critically redefine and reexamine West Indian literature of the 1950s, Beyond Windrush challenges the myth that an elite cohort of male novelists based in postwar London ...
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The first book to critically redefine and reexamine West Indian literature of the 1950s, Beyond Windrush challenges the myth that an elite cohort of male novelists based in postwar London single-handedly produced Anglophone Caribbean literature and broadens our understanding of Caribbean and Black British literary history. Writers of this cohort, often reduced to George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul, and Sam Sevlon, are referred to “the Windrush writers,” in tribute to the S.S. Empire Windrush, whose 1948 voyage from Jamaica inaugurated the large-scale Caribbean migration to London. They have been properly celebrated for producing a complex, anti-colonial, nationalist literary tradition, but, as this collection demonstrates, their uncritical canonization has obscured the diversity of postwar Caribbean writers and produced a narrow definition of West Indian literature. The fourteen original essays in this collection here make clear that already in the 1950s a wide spectrum of West Indian men and women—Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean and white-creole—were writing, publishing (and even painting)—and that many were in the Caribbean, Canada, and the United States, rather than London. Moreover, they addressed subjects omitted from the masculinist canon, such as queer sexuality and the environment. The collection offers new readings of canonical authors (Lamming, Roger Mais, and Andrew Salkey); hitherto marginalized authors (such as Ismith Khan, Elma Napier, and John Hearne); commonly ignored genres (such as the memoir, short stories, and journalism); as well as alternative units of cultural and political unity, such as the Pan-Caribbean as well as potentially trans-hemispheric, trans-island conceptions of political identity.Less
The first book to critically redefine and reexamine West Indian literature of the 1950s, Beyond Windrush challenges the myth that an elite cohort of male novelists based in postwar London single-handedly produced Anglophone Caribbean literature and broadens our understanding of Caribbean and Black British literary history. Writers of this cohort, often reduced to George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul, and Sam Sevlon, are referred to “the Windrush writers,” in tribute to the S.S. Empire Windrush, whose 1948 voyage from Jamaica inaugurated the large-scale Caribbean migration to London. They have been properly celebrated for producing a complex, anti-colonial, nationalist literary tradition, but, as this collection demonstrates, their uncritical canonization has obscured the diversity of postwar Caribbean writers and produced a narrow definition of West Indian literature. The fourteen original essays in this collection here make clear that already in the 1950s a wide spectrum of West Indian men and women—Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean and white-creole—were writing, publishing (and even painting)—and that many were in the Caribbean, Canada, and the United States, rather than London. Moreover, they addressed subjects omitted from the masculinist canon, such as queer sexuality and the environment. The collection offers new readings of canonical authors (Lamming, Roger Mais, and Andrew Salkey); hitherto marginalized authors (such as Ismith Khan, Elma Napier, and John Hearne); commonly ignored genres (such as the memoir, short stories, and journalism); as well as alternative units of cultural and political unity, such as the Pan-Caribbean as well as potentially trans-hemispheric, trans-island conceptions of political identity.
Thomas S. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231169424
- eISBN:
- 9780231537889
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231169424.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In this final chapter, late modernism’s outward turn captures the changes in political belonging wrought by the twin phenomena of decolonization and mass migration from the Caribbean to British ...
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In this final chapter, late modernism’s outward turn captures the changes in political belonging wrought by the twin phenomena of decolonization and mass migration from the Caribbean to British shores.Less
In this final chapter, late modernism’s outward turn captures the changes in political belonging wrought by the twin phenomena of decolonization and mass migration from the Caribbean to British shores.
Tony Kushner
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719066405
- eISBN:
- 9781781704721
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719066405.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This pioneering study of migrant journeys to Britain begins with Huguenot refugees in the 1680s and continues to asylum seekers and east European workers today. Analysing the history and memory of ...
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This pioneering study of migrant journeys to Britain begins with Huguenot refugees in the 1680s and continues to asylum seekers and east European workers today. Analysing the history and memory of migrant journeys, covering not only the response of politicians and the public but also literary and artistic representations, then and now, this volume sheds new light on the nature and construction of Britishness from the early modern era onwards. It helps to explain why people come to Britain (or are denied entry) and how migrants have been viewed by state and society alike. The journeys covered vary from the famous (including the Empire Windrush in 1948) to the obscure, such as the Volga German transmigrants passing through Britain in the 1870s. While employing a broadly historical approach, the book incorporates insights from many other disciplines and employs a comparative methodology to highlight the importance of the symbolic as well as the physical nature of such journeys.Less
This pioneering study of migrant journeys to Britain begins with Huguenot refugees in the 1680s and continues to asylum seekers and east European workers today. Analysing the history and memory of migrant journeys, covering not only the response of politicians and the public but also literary and artistic representations, then and now, this volume sheds new light on the nature and construction of Britishness from the early modern era onwards. It helps to explain why people come to Britain (or are denied entry) and how migrants have been viewed by state and society alike. The journeys covered vary from the famous (including the Empire Windrush in 1948) to the obscure, such as the Volga German transmigrants passing through Britain in the 1870s. While employing a broadly historical approach, the book incorporates insights from many other disciplines and employs a comparative methodology to highlight the importance of the symbolic as well as the physical nature of such journeys.
Tuire Valkeakari
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813062471
- eISBN:
- 9780813051963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813062471.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
An analysis of The Emigrants, The Final Passage, and Small Island, chapter 4 brings together this book’s arguments by exploring the relationship among diasporic, imperial, and national identity ...
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An analysis of The Emigrants, The Final Passage, and Small Island, chapter 4 brings together this book’s arguments by exploring the relationship among diasporic, imperial, and national identity formations in George Lamming’s, Caryl Phillips’s, and Andrea Levy’s novels about West Indian immigrants (who are both African Caribbean diasporans and subjects of the British empire) settling in Britain after World War II. Lamming and Phillips—members, respectively, of the first and second generations of post-Windrush writers—convey a Middle Passage sensibility more powerfully than does Levy, who, in the generational classification of post-Windrush novelists, belongs to the third generation. Like The Emigrants and Final Passage, Small Island, too, underscores the antiblack racism experienced by black Caribbean migrants to Britain. Yet exilic melancholy, though a presence, does not dominate Small Island in the way it controls Lamming’s and Phillips’s writing. In Levy’s treatment, the story of the postwar black Caribbean diaspora in Britain grows into a narrative of active diaspora-making. Finally, the chapter also examines how each of these three authors portrays the gendered aspects of the postwar Caribbean migration to Britain.Less
An analysis of The Emigrants, The Final Passage, and Small Island, chapter 4 brings together this book’s arguments by exploring the relationship among diasporic, imperial, and national identity formations in George Lamming’s, Caryl Phillips’s, and Andrea Levy’s novels about West Indian immigrants (who are both African Caribbean diasporans and subjects of the British empire) settling in Britain after World War II. Lamming and Phillips—members, respectively, of the first and second generations of post-Windrush writers—convey a Middle Passage sensibility more powerfully than does Levy, who, in the generational classification of post-Windrush novelists, belongs to the third generation. Like The Emigrants and Final Passage, Small Island, too, underscores the antiblack racism experienced by black Caribbean migrants to Britain. Yet exilic melancholy, though a presence, does not dominate Small Island in the way it controls Lamming’s and Phillips’s writing. In Levy’s treatment, the story of the postwar black Caribbean diaspora in Britain grows into a narrative of active diaspora-making. Finally, the chapter also examines how each of these three authors portrays the gendered aspects of the postwar Caribbean migration to Britain.
John Belchem
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319679
- eISBN:
- 9781781387153
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319679.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
Based on extensive primary sources, this study brings historical perspective and context to debate about race and immigration in Britain. The focus is on Liverpool and its pioneer but problematic ...
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Based on extensive primary sources, this study brings historical perspective and context to debate about race and immigration in Britain. The focus is on Liverpool and its pioneer but problematic race relations as the once proud Edwardian cosmopolitan ‘second city of empire’ transmogrified into the shock city of post-colonial, post-industrial Britain. As the gateway of empire, the great seaport of Liverpool attracted significant numbers of ‘coloured’ colonials long before the arrival of West Indian migrants on the ‘Empire Windrush’ in 1948. Their legal status as British subjects in the ‘motherland’ notwithstanding, Liverpool's ‘coloured’ community of transients, sojourners and settlers were the first to discover that ‘There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack’. Their struggle against prejudice and discrimination serves as foundation narrative in the making of the black British, an identity obscured and misunderstood by conventional concentration on recent immigration. The warnings emanating from Liverpool's troubled pattern of race relations went unheeded in Britain's uneasy transition to a multi-cultural society, as the empire ‘came home’ following decolonisation. Instead of serving as object lesson, Liverpool was by this time marginalised and denigrated, condemned as an internal ‘other’ at odds with positive developments elsewhere in enterprise Britain. For agencies seeking to regenerate and rehabilitate the city, measures to address racial discrimination and disadvantage were seldom a priority (or even included) in a succession of ill-fated projects to tackle multiple deprivation. In the aftermath of the Toxteth riots of 1981, once proud ‘cosmopolitan’ Liverpool stood condemned for its ‘uniquely horrific’ racism.Less
Based on extensive primary sources, this study brings historical perspective and context to debate about race and immigration in Britain. The focus is on Liverpool and its pioneer but problematic race relations as the once proud Edwardian cosmopolitan ‘second city of empire’ transmogrified into the shock city of post-colonial, post-industrial Britain. As the gateway of empire, the great seaport of Liverpool attracted significant numbers of ‘coloured’ colonials long before the arrival of West Indian migrants on the ‘Empire Windrush’ in 1948. Their legal status as British subjects in the ‘motherland’ notwithstanding, Liverpool's ‘coloured’ community of transients, sojourners and settlers were the first to discover that ‘There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack’. Their struggle against prejudice and discrimination serves as foundation narrative in the making of the black British, an identity obscured and misunderstood by conventional concentration on recent immigration. The warnings emanating from Liverpool's troubled pattern of race relations went unheeded in Britain's uneasy transition to a multi-cultural society, as the empire ‘came home’ following decolonisation. Instead of serving as object lesson, Liverpool was by this time marginalised and denigrated, condemned as an internal ‘other’ at odds with positive developments elsewhere in enterprise Britain. For agencies seeking to regenerate and rehabilitate the city, measures to address racial discrimination and disadvantage were seldom a priority (or even included) in a succession of ill-fated projects to tackle multiple deprivation. In the aftermath of the Toxteth riots of 1981, once proud ‘cosmopolitan’ Liverpool stood condemned for its ‘uniquely horrific’ racism.
Tony Kushner
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719066405
- eISBN:
- 9781781704721
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719066405.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter discusses the emigration of West Indians after the Second World War. It describes the arrival of black West Indians, generalised as Jamaicans, aboard the Empire Windrush to Britain in ...
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This chapter discusses the emigration of West Indians after the Second World War. It describes the arrival of black West Indians, generalised as Jamaicans, aboard the Empire Windrush to Britain in 1948. The chapter explores the significance of the migrant journeys of the West Indians, the beginning of black presence in Britain and the contributions of the migrants to the nation's chronological evolution.Less
This chapter discusses the emigration of West Indians after the Second World War. It describes the arrival of black West Indians, generalised as Jamaicans, aboard the Empire Windrush to Britain in 1948. The chapter explores the significance of the migrant journeys of the West Indians, the beginning of black presence in Britain and the contributions of the migrants to the nation's chronological evolution.
Wendy Webster
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198735762
- eISBN:
- 9780191799747
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198735762.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History, British and Irish Modern History
The end of the war saw many departures from Britain—troops were demobbed and refugees returned. But in the aftermath of war, the population in Britain remained more diverse than it had been before ...
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The end of the war saw many departures from Britain—troops were demobbed and refugees returned. But in the aftermath of war, the population in Britain remained more diverse than it had been before 1939. Government schemes generated many post-war arrivals through the recruitment of workers, mainly from Europe. Many of those who stayed on or returned remember a change of climate in the aftermath of war—to a more hostile one, their wartime contributions forgotten. Such forgetting is apparent also in cultural memories disseminated in British cinema and other media. The celebration of an ‘allies’ war’ was for the duration of the war only—the images and sounds of allies, which had been so prominent in wartime Britain, faded rapidly when the war was over. In public memories, many groups who contributed to the Allied war effort were forgotten, not only in Britain, but also in their own countries.Less
The end of the war saw many departures from Britain—troops were demobbed and refugees returned. But in the aftermath of war, the population in Britain remained more diverse than it had been before 1939. Government schemes generated many post-war arrivals through the recruitment of workers, mainly from Europe. Many of those who stayed on or returned remember a change of climate in the aftermath of war—to a more hostile one, their wartime contributions forgotten. Such forgetting is apparent also in cultural memories disseminated in British cinema and other media. The celebration of an ‘allies’ war’ was for the duration of the war only—the images and sounds of allies, which had been so prominent in wartime Britain, faded rapidly when the war was over. In public memories, many groups who contributed to the Allied war effort were forgotten, not only in Britain, but also in their own countries.
Kennetta Hammond Perry
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- December 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190240202
- eISBN:
- 9780190240226
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190240202.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
When Lord Kitchener proclaimed, “London is the place for me” as he exited the SS Empire Windrush, he did so at a critical juncture in the global and diasporic history of race politics in Britain and ...
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When Lord Kitchener proclaimed, “London is the place for me” as he exited the SS Empire Windrush, he did so at a critical juncture in the global and diasporic history of race politics in Britain and the African Diaspora. This introduction reimagines the landing of the Windrush as a historical guidepost linking the political experiences of people of African descent in the Empire and those within the confines of the imperial metropolis. The introduction outlines elements of the broader historical context shaping histories of Afro-Caribbean migration to Britain and the attendant questions about race, citizenship, and Black Britishness that these movements prompted during the postwar era. This book argues that Black Britons actively shaped debates about race and citizenship in Britain. Moreover, it situates postwar race politics in Britain within a larger transnational historiography about Black political activity and struggles for citizenship within the African Diaspora in the twentieth century.Less
When Lord Kitchener proclaimed, “London is the place for me” as he exited the SS Empire Windrush, he did so at a critical juncture in the global and diasporic history of race politics in Britain and the African Diaspora. This introduction reimagines the landing of the Windrush as a historical guidepost linking the political experiences of people of African descent in the Empire and those within the confines of the imperial metropolis. The introduction outlines elements of the broader historical context shaping histories of Afro-Caribbean migration to Britain and the attendant questions about race, citizenship, and Black Britishness that these movements prompted during the postwar era. This book argues that Black Britons actively shaped debates about race and citizenship in Britain. Moreover, it situates postwar race politics in Britain within a larger transnational historiography about Black political activity and struggles for citizenship within the African Diaspora in the twentieth century.
Daniel Nilsson DeHanas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198743675
- eISBN:
- 9780191803833
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198743675.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies, Islam
The introduction opens by situating the book in contemporary debates on religion, immigration, and integration in Western Europe. The “Muslim question” that underlies many of these debates can be ...
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The introduction opens by situating the book in contemporary debates on religion, immigration, and integration in Western Europe. The “Muslim question” that underlies many of these debates can be deeply troubling, yet it is also unanswerable. The introduction proposes moving beyond the Muslim question to the more tangible and forward-looking “civic question”: what kinds of citizens are immigrants and their descendants becoming? With this question in place as core to the book, the introduction then proceeds to explain the research that was conducted with second-generation young people in London. The two groups studied—young Jamaicans in Brixton and young Bengalis in the East End—are described in turn. Brief histories are provided of post-Windrush immigration, settlement, and politics in Brixton and the East End. The introduction succinctly explains the research methods of the study. It ends with a brief outline of the content of each chapter in the book.Less
The introduction opens by situating the book in contemporary debates on religion, immigration, and integration in Western Europe. The “Muslim question” that underlies many of these debates can be deeply troubling, yet it is also unanswerable. The introduction proposes moving beyond the Muslim question to the more tangible and forward-looking “civic question”: what kinds of citizens are immigrants and their descendants becoming? With this question in place as core to the book, the introduction then proceeds to explain the research that was conducted with second-generation young people in London. The two groups studied—young Jamaicans in Brixton and young Bengalis in the East End—are described in turn. Brief histories are provided of post-Windrush immigration, settlement, and politics in Brixton and the East End. The introduction succinctly explains the research methods of the study. It ends with a brief outline of the content of each chapter in the book.
