230576 Black British Literature (S) (SoSe 2009)

Britain's imperial legacy has turned the country into a multiethnic one. It was especially due to waves of immigrants since the 1950s from the Caribbean, from India and Pakistan as well as from Africa that a tradition of 'black' writing developed in Britain. The term 'black' sometimes covers immigrants of both African and Asian descent, and is used in this sense here. In this seminar, we will explore the ways in which authors have discussed the identity politics of Black and Asian immigrants: their experiences as outsiders and their sense of self, their conditions of life, their search for roots, their concepts of home, and their travels to and from the 'mother country'. The core reading will be three novels, but we will also discuss some additional short stories and poems. A reader containing this additional material will be available by the beginning of the semester

Please buy your own copy of the three novels:

Andrea Levy, Fruit of the Lemon (1999)
Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)
Caryl Phillips, Foreigners (2007)