Advances in Language and Literary Studies - Vol. 5 No. 2 - Textual Transformations in Contemporary Black Writing in Britain

Oct 15, 2026

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The article examines how cultural change in Britain has shaped literary production and enabled textual transformations in contemporary black writing. After discussing an earlier Caribbean immigrant wave that explored race-related issues, it argues that Caryl Phillips’s 2009 novel In the Falling Snow goes beyond familiar multicultural representations and surpasses the restrictive “noose of race” to celebrate a post-racial, polycultural cosmopolitan society grounded in mixed-race identities and a reimagined London as a “home space.”

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time11 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Changing Currents: Superseding the Multiculturalism Model

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 5 No. 2; April 2014 Copyright © Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Textual Transformations in Contemporary Black Writing in Britain Jawhar Ahmed Dhouib Department of English, University of Gabes PO Box 6000, Ali Jmel, Gabes, Tunisia E-mail: [jawharahmed@hotmail.fr](jawharahmed@hotmail.fr) Doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.2p. 120 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.2p.120](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.2p.120) Received: 21/02/2014 Accepted: 08/04/2014 Abstract While the first wave of Caribbean immigrant writers brilliantly explored race-related issues, black Britons like Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith and Caryl Phillips, among others, have sought to depart from earlier fiction, motivated in their project by the changing white face of Britain. In this article, I would like to argue that cultural change in Britain has deeply influenced literary production and has, consequently, laid the ground for a series of textual transformations. To capture instances of creative excess in contemporary black writing in Britain, I will bring under examination Caryl Phillips’s (2009) novel In the Falling Snow. My intention is to show to what extent Phillips’s work surpasses the‘noose of race’ and already-familiar representations of multicultural Britain to celebrate a‘post-racial ’ society. Keywords: Caryl Phillips, Caribbean diaspora, contemporary black writing, multiculturalism, polyculturalism 1. Introduction Novels by pioneer West Indian writers in Britain, chief among whom are V. S. Naipaul, Samuel Selvon, George Lamming and Wilson Harris, to name but a few, have offered a lively palette of stories, bittersweet anecdotes, vivid experiences and profound meditations on the journey from the Caribbean to the metropolis. A particularly prominent feature of this fiction is the sense of social marginalisation and alienation experienced by post-World War II Caribbean immigrants to Britain, generically known as the Windrush generation. 1 i The trope of the solitary West Indian migrant floundering in London railway stations or wandering aimlessly in the alleyways of the city in search of descent housing is central to the large body of West Indian novels written during the 1950s and 1960s. The Lonely Londoners (1956), as suggested by Samuel Selvon’s landmark novel, engage acrimoniously in setting in contrast the grim English weather to the tropical climate back home in the Caribbean archipelago. Another substantial feature of these novels of migration, as often referred to, is the portrayal of West Indian expatriates concentrating together in “imagined communities,”Anderson (1983), seeking to support fresh off the boat new arrivals, while looking back with atavistic nostalgia to their imaginary Caribbean homeland.ii While the first wave of Caribbean immigrant writers brilliantly explored the desire for return that haunted the Windrushers, contemporary black fiction in Britain, by contrast, dispenses with the idea of return, and more significantly, with establishing comparisons between the‘here’ of black Britons and the‘there’ of their progenitors. The descendants of the Caribbean diaspora in the metropolis like Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith and Caryl Phillips, among many others, have sought to depart from earlier fiction, motivated in their project by the changing white face of Britain. In this paper, I would like to argue that social and cultural change in Britain has deeply influenced literary production and has consequently laid the ground for a series of textual transformations. To capture instances of creative excess in contemporary black writing in Britain, I will bring under scrutiny Caribbean-born writer Caryl Phillips’s novel In the Falling Snow, first published in 2009.iii Phillips ’s novel is set at the cross-currents between the familiar migration novels written by pioneer West Indian writers and the growing body of twenty-f

FAQs

What does the article argue about cultural change in Britain?

It argues that social and cultural change in Britain has deeply influenced literary production, laying the groundwork for textual transformations in contemporary black writing.

Which novel is examined to illustrate these transformations?

Caryl Phillips’s 2009 novel In the Falling Snow is examined to show how the work exceeds “restrictive” racial representations and clichéd multicultural Britain narratives.

How does the article describe early Caribbean immigrant fiction in Britain?

It highlights themes of social marginalisation and alienation, especially the Windrush generation, and discusses migration tropes such as solitary migrants and imagined communities formed in the metropolis.

Oct 15, 2026

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