The heart of the Empire
Black British literature, or that literature written in English by Caribbean, Asian, African, and other people who originated from the ex-British Empire, has an ancient pedigree, as ancient as the Empire itself.
Black writers have been at the forefront of unravelling the economic and psychological relationships at the heart of the Empire. the earliest examples from Olaudah Equiano to Ignatius Sancho in the 18th century, have been about the recovery of self, through autobiographical narratives. Their books, as well as being campaign tracts against slavery, also sought to declare through a first person insistence, their own humanity, against the abuses of Empire.
Over the years the preoccupation of much of the literature has been with this troubled quest for identity and liberty.
The arrival of Windrush
By the time of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks on June 21st 1948, there had been much change in the Empire itself and in the attitude of the people from the colonies. Britain was recovering from an exhausting and ruinous war, which had sapped her will to hang onto her former colonies. Already in 1947, India and Pakistan had gained independence. The Windrush pioneers were thus coming 'home', to a place that was rapidly changing. They were to become the important harbingers of profound transformation in post-empire Britain. And the writers who joined the successive waves of arriving migrants were going to be at the forefront of writing about this massive change in attitudes and landscape.
Published: 1998-01-01
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