Mongrel Nation : Diasporic Culture and the Making of Postcolonial Britain

Ashley Dawson

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9780472025053
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Mongrel Nation surveys the history of the United Kingdom's African, Asian, and Caribbean populations from 1948 to the present, working at the juncture of cultural studies, literary criticism, and postcolonial theory. Ashley Dawson argues that during the past fifty years Asian and black intellectuals from Sam Selvon to Zadie Smith have continually challenged the United Kingdom's exclusionary definitions of citizenship, using innovative forms of cultural expression to reconfigure definitions of belonging in the postcolonial age. By examining popular culture and exploring topics such as the nexus of race and gender, the growth of transnational politics, and the clash between first- and second-generation immigrants, Dawson broadens and enlivens the field of postcolonial studies.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Colonization in Reverse An Introduction
• 1 “In the Big City the Sex Life Gone Wild” Migration, Gender, and Identity in Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners
• 2 Black Power in a Transnational Frame Radical Populism and the Caribbean Artists Movement
• 3 Behind the Mask Carnival Politics and British Identity in Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Dub Poetry
• 4 Beyond Imperial Feminism Buchi Emecheta’s London Novels and Black British Women’s Emancipation
• 5 Heritage Politics of the Soul Immigration and Identity in Salman Rushdie’sThe Satanic Verses
• 6 Genetics, Biotechnology, and the Future of “Race” in Zadie Smith’s White Teeth
• Conclusion: “Step Back from the Blow Back” Asian Hip-Hop and Post-9/11 Britain
• Notes
• Index