Imagining London: Postcolonial Fiction and the Transnational Metropolis

John Walker is a professor of Spanish studies at Queen’s University.

For centuries London has been not only the capital of England and the
most important city in the United Kingdom, but also the centre of the
British Empire, socially, politically, economically, and culturally.
After World War II and the gradual withdrawal of Britain from its
colonies in Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and elsewhere through the
1960s, London began to have a new role to play in relation to the
Commonwealth, as citizens from the old colonies began to exercise their
civic right, seeking asylum and material success in the bosom of Mother
England. As Ball (an English professor at the University of New
Brunswick) eloquently points out in his interesting if at times
theory-ridden study, the process was two-way. If the diaspora profited
from the new improved life, the capital city also contributed to the
reformation of the character of the commonwealth expatriates and the
other immigrants who sought the good life in the former heart of the
empire.

Imagining London is a sophisticated work of literary and cultural
criticism, rooted in the much-vaunted postcolonial theories, replete
with new concepts of comparative literature; multidisciplinary in its
use of cultural geography, urban theory, sociology, historical
perspectives; and challenging ideas on race and ethnicity. The book is
divided into four solid chapters, preceded by a lengthy, illuminating
introduction.

Each chapter is focused geographically and nationally. Chapter 2, on
London North-West, analyzes the writing of Mordecai Richler, Robertson
Davies, Margaret Atwood, Susan Swan, and lesser-known writers like Kate
Pullinger and Catherine Bush, as they depict the life and struggles of
Canadian expatriates in the English capital. Chapter 3, on London
South-West, deals with Caribbean fiction and metropolitan life, as
reflected in the work of key West Indian writers such as Jean Rhys, Sam
Selvon, and V.S. Naipaul. The metropolitan realities of South-East
London are captured in the Indian fiction of Anita Desai, Salman
Rushdie, and Amitav Ghosh, among others. The final chapter on London
Centre and the family urban world of black British writing deals with
notable young writers such as Hanif Kureishi (The Buddha of Suburbia)
and Zadie Smith (White Teeth).

Complex in its arguments and provocative in the questions it raises,
Imagining London represents an important contribution to postcolonial
literary and cultural studies.