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A Black British Canon?Introduction

A Black British Canon?: Introduction [The 1980s and 1990s saw the emergence and consolidation of an important body of creative writing, visual and performing arts that circulates under the sign of ‘Black British’. Despite the problems associated with, what Kobena Mercer has called, an ‘authenticating myth of origins’ in the history of black representation, the enormous productivity of the 1980s represents a kind of creative watershed in black expressive cultures.1 It has certainly led to the current eminent stature of some black artists and to an intense critical interest in their work. Significantly, a number of important creative writing anthologies appeared in this decade, notably, News from Babylon (1984), A Dangerous Knowing: Four Black Women Poets (1984), Let it be Told: Black Women Writers in Britain (1987), Watchers and Seekers (1987), Charting the Journey: Writings by Black and Third World Women (1988), Storms of the Heart: An Anthology of Black Arts and Culture (1988), and Hinterland (1989).2 The 1980s was also book-ended by the publication of one of the earliest critical and literary guides to black British writing, David Dabydeen and N. Wilson-Tagoe’s A Reader’s Guide to West Indian and Black British Literature (1988).3 The sheer quality and quantity of black writing that emerged in the 1980s was consolidated in the 1990s with novelists such as Caryl Phillips, Hanif Kureshi and David Dabydeen, and poets like Linton Kwesi Johnson, Fred D’Aguiar, Grace Nichols and Jackie Kay, who moved beyond national recognition to international acclaim.4] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Black British Canon?Introduction

Editors: Low, Gail; Wynne-Davies, Marion
Low, Gail; Wynne-Davies, Marion
A Black British Canon? — Mar 5, 2015
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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2006
ISBN
978-1-349-52156-2
Pages
1 –12
DOI
10.1057/9780230625693_1
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[The 1980s and 1990s saw the emergence and consolidation of an important body of creative writing, visual and performing arts that circulates under the sign of ‘Black British’. Despite the problems associated with, what Kobena Mercer has called, an ‘authenticating myth of origins’ in the history of black representation, the enormous productivity of the 1980s represents a kind of creative watershed in black expressive cultures.1 It has certainly led to the current eminent stature of some black artists and to an intense critical interest in their work. Significantly, a number of important creative writing anthologies appeared in this decade, notably, News from Babylon (1984), A Dangerous Knowing: Four Black Women Poets (1984), Let it be Told: Black Women Writers in Britain (1987), Watchers and Seekers (1987), Charting the Journey: Writings by Black and Third World Women (1988), Storms of the Heart: An Anthology of Black Arts and Culture (1988), and Hinterland (1989).2 The 1980s was also book-ended by the publication of one of the earliest critical and literary guides to black British writing, David Dabydeen and N. Wilson-Tagoe’s A Reader’s Guide to West Indian and Black British Literature (1988).3 The sheer quality and quantity of black writing that emerged in the 1980s was consolidated in the 1990s with novelists such as Caryl Phillips, Hanif Kureshi and David Dabydeen, and poets like Linton Kwesi Johnson, Fred D’Aguiar, Grace Nichols and Jackie Kay, who moved beyond national recognition to international acclaim.4]

Published: Mar 5, 2015

Keywords: Canon Formation; Cultural Production; Black People; Popular Music; Creative Writing

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