Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing
- The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I New Formations
- Part II Uneven Histories
- (I) Global Locals
- (II) Disappointed Citizens
- 12 Looking Back, Looking Forward
- 13 Double Displacements, Diasporic Attachments
- 14 Wide-Angled Modernities and Alternative Metropolitan Imaginaries
- 15 Forging Collective Identities
- 16 Breaking New Ground
- 17 The Lure of Postwar London
- 18 Looking Beyond, Shifting the Gaze
- (III) Here to Stay
- Part III Writing the Contemporary
- Select Bibliography
- Index
18 - Looking Beyond, Shifting the Gaze
Writers in Motion
from (II) - Disappointed Citizens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 December 2019
- The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing
- The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I New Formations
- Part II Uneven Histories
- (I) Global Locals
- (II) Disappointed Citizens
- 12 Looking Back, Looking Forward
- 13 Double Displacements, Diasporic Attachments
- 14 Wide-Angled Modernities and Alternative Metropolitan Imaginaries
- 15 Forging Collective Identities
- 16 Breaking New Ground
- 17 The Lure of Postwar London
- 18 Looking Beyond, Shifting the Gaze
- (III) Here to Stay
- Part III Writing the Contemporary
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Black and Asian British writing can be formalised as diaspora literatures with links to ancestral homelands on the subcontinent, in Africa, and in the Caribbean; interrogations of and inscriptions on a matrix of British cultures are another thematic and aesthetic concern of black and Asian British writing. Beyond this familiar framework, though, a range of writers roam more widely, exploring different pathways: V. S. Naipaul’s interest in Africa or North America is a case in point, as are Caryl Phillips’s European travelogues, or Shiva Naipaul’s travel writing, and his essays collected in Unfinished Journey (1986). Bernardine Evaristo’s Lara explores her Brazilian, Nigerian, Irish, and German ancestry, whilst Andrew Salkey recounts his travels to Guyana in Georgetown Journal (1972) and celebrates placelessness in his Anancy Traveller (1992). This chapter thus focuses on writing which does not give primacy to the exploration of ancestral or postcolonial origins, but reaches out beyond this well-established binary framework of homes past and present.
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- The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing , pp. 296 - 310Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020