Q: Apart from Small Island by Andrea Levy, what are the best novels on being black and British in the 20th and 21st century?
From a 61-year-old, middle-class white woman who lives in West Sussex, and who is sadly entirely insulated from black British lives.
A: Kit de Waal, author of My Name Is Leon and The Trick to Time
There’s a lot of great writing by black British authors, although the experience of being black and British is as diverse as the ethnic identities who would describe themselves as such.
In his debut novel In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne inhabits the lives and minds of young black men on a London estate. We’re up so close we can almost feel them breathing, see what makes them tick.
Ordinary People by Diana Evans covers entirely different territory – a black couple and an interracial couple navigating a black British space and culture seldom seen in literature. Again, it’s writing so vivid it’s as though we’re hearing the true-life stories of our friends.
Two recent books reinterpret the classics through a post-colonial lens. In her Folio prize-longlisted novel We That Are Young, Preti Taneja rewrites King Lear in present-day India, and Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction) sets Antigone in Britain among British Pakistani Muslims.
Look out for Candice Carty-Williams’s novel Queenie, out next year. Sexy, kick-ass and very of the moment, it’s a wry look at dating and independence for black women.
I also recommend Happiness by Aminatta Forna, The One Who Wrote Destiny by Nikesh Shukla and Ponti by Sharlene Teo – and no list would be complete without Zadie Smith, Bernardine Evaristo and, for young adults, Alex Wheatle, who creates convincing stories rich with the language and reality of street life.
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