Springer Narratives of Community in the Black British Short Story

Review “Jansen’s new book is a brilliant critical response to the social and cultural transformations in contemporary Britain, providing a rigorous critical answer to the urge of posing solutions to social conflict. Covering a wide range of authors, here Jansen articulates the first systematic analysis of the black British short story through the adequate lens of postcolonial and philosophical concepts of community in what stands out as an essential thorough examination of both “black British literature” and the short story, thus constituting an illuminating contribution to the field.” (Laura Mª Lojo-Rodríguez, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and coeditor of Gender and Short Fiction: Women’s Tales in Contemporary Britain (2018))“Bettina Jansen draws our attention to the vital contribution made by Black British writers to the contemporary short story in the UK.  Placing both well-known and undervalued texts within their political context she shows just how urgently we need to read them.  Scrupulously researched, this book is bang up to date, and will remain relevant well into the future.” (Ailsa Cox, Professor of Short Fiction, Edge Hill University, UK) “This remarkable volume maps the development and typology of the black British short story, with a focus on its articulation of new discourses on community. It combines a sophisticated theoretical framework with insightful readings of specific texts. Through its brilliant, accessible rendering of postcolonial and deconstructive theories of community, it makes a distinctive contribution to the study of community and literature. Undoubtedly, a welcome contribution to a burgeoning field of study.” (Paula Martín-Salván, Associate Professor, University of Córdoba, Spain, and author of The Language of Ethics and Community in Graham Greene’s Fiction (Palgrave 2015))  Product Description Narratives of Community in the Black British Short Story offers the first systematic study of black British short story writing, tracing its development from the 1950s to the present with a particular focus on contemporary short stories by Hanif Kureishi, Jackie Kay, Suhayl Saadi, Zadie Smith, and Hari Kunzru. Bycombining a postcolonial framework of analysis with Jean-Luc Nancy’s deconstructive philosophy of community, the book charts key tendencies in black British short fiction and explores how black British writers use the short story form to combat deeply entrenched notions of community and experiment with non-essentialist alternatives across differences of ethnicity, culture, religion, and nationality.   Review   Review   From the Back Cover Narratives of Community in the Black British Short Story offers the first systematic study of black British short story writing, tracing its development from the 1950s to the present with a particular focus on contemporary short stories by Hanif Kureishi, Jackie Kay, Suhayl Saadi, Zadie Smith, and Hari Kunzru. By combining a postcolonial framework of analysis with Jean-Luc Nancy’s deconstructive philosophy of community, the book charts key tendencies in black British short fiction and explores how black British writers use the short story form to combat deeply entrenched notions of community and experiment with non-essentialist alternatives across differences of ethnicity, culture, religion, and nationality.  About the Author Bettina Jansen is Research Assistant and Lecturer for English Literature at TU Dresden, Germany. She is also the co-editor of the first German-language handbook on masculinity studies, Männlichkeit: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (2016, with Stefan Horlacher and Wieland Schwanebeck).