Book contents
- The Nation in British Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in British Literature and Culture
- The Nation in British Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Origins
- Part II Writing the Nation
- Part III Revolutions and Empires
- Part IV Making the Modern Nation
- Chapter 14 ‘It’s Being So Cheerful That Keeps Me Going’
- Chapter 15 The New British
- Chapter 16 Censorship
- Chapter 17 ‘Wake Up the Nation’
- Chapter 18 Queer Nation
- Part V Futures
- Index
Chapter 15 - The New British
from Part IV - Making the Modern Nation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2023
- The Nation in British Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in British Literature and Culture
- The Nation in British Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Origins
- Part II Writing the Nation
- Part III Revolutions and Empires
- Part IV Making the Modern Nation
- Chapter 14 ‘It’s Being So Cheerful That Keeps Me Going’
- Chapter 15 The New British
- Chapter 16 Censorship
- Chapter 17 ‘Wake Up the Nation’
- Chapter 18 Queer Nation
- Part V Futures
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses changing conceptions of national identity as Britain entered its postcolonial phase after World War II. Structured around key moments like the attempt to reconfigure the Empire as a ’Commonwealth of Nations’, the famed 1948 arrival of the Empire Windrush with migrants from the Caribbean and the various citizenship laws passed in the wake of increasing migration from Britain’s colonial holdings, the chapter examines the work of writers who became part of the new communities settling into Britain during the post-war period. Pioneering authors E. R. Braithwaite, George Lamming, V. S. Naipaul and Sam Selvon are considered, as well as their literary inheritors, including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Hari Kunzru, Andrea Levy, Kamala Markandaya, Caryl Phillips and Benjamin Zephaniah. Ultimately, the chapter reveals how literature has both registered and assertively renegotiated the still incomplete evolution towards a more ecumenical sense of Britishness.
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- Information
- The Nation in British Literature and Culture , pp. 260 - 275Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023