Indeed many now celebrated voices of hybridity and cultural fusion such as Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hanif Kureishi, Caryl Phillips, Benjamin Zephaniah, Meera Syal, Andrea Levy, David Dabydeen, Jackie Kay, Romesh Gunesekera, Monica Ali, Bernardine Evaristo or Zadie Smith are all in some respects related to or often the direct descendants of such post war migrant experiences.Yet as Salman Rushdie once famously observed, ‘cultural impurity is nothing new’; moreover, cultural admixture has always been a dynamic creative force and has always influenced aesthetic shifts and reconfigurations. The UK has had a large migrant population for well over 400 years so such crossings are not new, though perhaps in the context of the mass migrations of the late twentieth century, many from Britain’s former colonies, the imaginative nature and the perspectives of the voyages are. As Andrea Levy once aptly summed up the process in an early novel describing the need to make visible a more culturally diverse landscape in Britain: ‘If Englishness doesn’t define me, then redefine Englishness’.

The extent to which black, Asian and diasporic writing has become part of mainstream British writing has become plain in recent years. However, the fashionable media visibility and commercial success of works such as Hari Kunzru’s Transmission, Andrea Levy Small Island, Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, or Zadie Smith’s White Teeth only touch the edge of a much bigger story, a story partially represented in the pages of the literary magazine Wasafiri. Since 1984 Wasafiri (as its name taken from the Swahili for ‘travel’ suggests), has given widespread coverage to Britain’s diverse literary heritage. It has focussed since its inception on the figure of the writer as cultural traveller, moving worlds across cultures and transporting the imagination beyond the maps of narrowly defined national or cultural borders. Writers published in the magazine have included Ama Ata Aidoo, Leila Aboulela, Kamau Brathwaite, David Dabydeen, Anita Desai, Bernardine Evaristo, Maggie Gee, Romesh Gunesekera, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Aamer Hussein, Jackie Kay, Mimi Khalvati, Earl Lovelace, Jamal Mahjoub, Maggie Gee, Michael Ondaatje, Lawrence Scott, Derek Walcott and Marina Warner. The works of such writers not only chart an important cultural and literary history that has contributed to the internationalisation of English literature in the past century but also make clear the evolution of an important body of work which has come to be seen not as a vital part of mainstream culture, a tradition of writing which derives from a number of different historical and cultural contexts but continues to make important interventions into how the literary landscape of the UK is imagined today.

It is no surprise in the current climate that Hari Kunzru was the selected presenter and interviewer for a televised interview with Nobel Laureate V S Naipaul (first winner too of the David Cohen Prize for British writing) on his novel The Seeds of Change; nor is it remarkable that Sukhdev Sandhu, film critic for The Daily Telegraph is also a frequent reviewer and editor for Wasafiri.

There is much interest in cultural fusion and the shifting of national borders. Past notions of what constitutes writing in Britain have finally begun to shift. This is not only in the mindset of traditional publishing houses (who are now much keener to publish works dealing with the migrant or Black-British experience) but also in terms of the review reception such works receive. With the increasing popularity of films such as Bend It Like Beckham or Bride and Prejudice (both directed by Gurinder Chadha), the frequent showing of Bollywood films in mainstream cinemas and the success of West End shows such as Bombay Dreams, it would seem that the windows of Britain have opened. Cultural diversity and migration is not only a central aspect of modern life; it has become a way of life and a way of living life differently.

Such shifts do not however take place in a vacuum. Major funding initiatives and government directives have attempted to change perceptions of Britain’s plural society at an institutional level: such as the Arts Council Decibel project which sought with an intense injection of short tern funding to make a long term impact on how writers and artists from Britain’s migrant and ethnic communities are profiled. Multicultural theatre Companies such as Tara Arts have benefited from this as have many other diversity projects such as the ‘Great Day’ photoshoot, organized by Melanie Abrahams of renaissance one in partnership with the British Library, to mark the contribution that African, Caribbean and South Asian writers have made to the map of English literature. Groupings of this kind can of course create its own problems as some feel they do not wish to be labeled or identified according to race or ethnicity. Nevertheless, if one glances at the list of the fifty figures included in the photograph of ‘A Great Day’ one has a graphic visual image, not only of the key movers and shakers in the black and Asian literary scene today, but also of those who have been centrally involved in shaping its history. Many have been the recipients of awards. Andrea Levy, for her novel, Small Island (Orange Prize) or Malorie Blackman, the highly regarded and successful children’s author whose book Noughts and Crosses was one of the BBC’s selected choices for The Big Read. Others present were celebrating ongoing output with recent publications such as Jackie Kay’s New and Selected Poems which appears this year or Beverley Naidoo’s new book of fiction Web of Lies to be launched jointly with her debut play for children and young adults set in South Africa, The Playground.

In fact writing for children or young adults – writing that is commonly seen to be highly marketable as well as to occupy a different kind of in-between cultural space – has also begun to gain a great deal of backing from publishers as well as a wide readership. Notable titles this year alone include Adeline Yen Mah’s sequel to Chinese Cinderella entitled Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society as well as Rehana Ahmed’s edited collection of short stories for teenagers Walking the Tightrope. This well crafted collection attempts to breakdown the monolithic notion of an ‘Asian Britain’ by presenting a variety of different perspectives on cultural identity and migrancy which subvert such easy stereotypes.

It remains crucial that publishing and funding initiatives continue to support the wealth of new work that continues to emerge from Britain’s migrant writers. It is also important that the history of this writing and the contribution it has made to redefining visions of Englishness becomes institutionalized as a key part of the national heritage. Organisations such as SALIDAA (South Asian Literature and Arts Archive), supported by the National Lottery Fund are already making major inroads into this task. Similarly new literary magazines such as Sable formally launched this year, as well as Banipal, a magazine which focuses on Arab writers and writing as well as Third Text provide important forums. Literary prizes such as the Man Booker (with Achmat Dangor on the shortlist) or the Independent Foreign Fiction prize and the Caine Prize for African writing have also contributed as have the varied programmes of live literature events and festivals hosted by venues such as the South Bank Centre in London or supported by the British Council overseas. Finally for those interested in reading the present in terms of the past and getting an overview of the history of literary diversity in Britain there are the recently published critical studies: A History of Black and Asian Writing in Britain 1700-2000 by Lyn Innes, London Calling: How Black and Asain Writers Imagined a City by Sukhdev Sandhu and The Internationalization of English Literature by Bruce King. All of these books contain invaluable bibliographies and author biographies.

Dr Susheila Nasta is a critic, teacher, editor and broadcaster. Born in England, she was educated in India, Germany, Holland and Britain. Currently a Reader in Literature at the Open University, she has also taught at the Universities of London and Cambridge.

Diversity and Diaspora Writing in the UK by Jennifer Langer

The literature produced provides an insight not only into the pain of the refugee experience manifested in alienation, marginalisation and identity crises, but also into the complexity and diversity of the experiences and concerns of writers from different countries. It is fascinating to gain awareness of very different literary traditions and forms which may be unfamiliar to those imbued with a Eurocentric literary perspective.

Amongst the writers are those who were established in their own countries and who were forced to abide by censorship conditions with some being imprisoned and forced to flee because of the danger to their lives, an effect of the fear of regimes of the power of the pen. Writers who were established in their countries of origin include Saadi Yousef (Iraq), Rrahman Dedaj (Kosova), Esmail Khoi (Iran), Miroslav Jancic (Bosnia), Liliya Sazanavets (Belarus), Kamal Mirawdeli (Kurdistan) and Berang Kohdamani (Afghanistan). Other exiled writers started becoming creative in the UK, often stimulated by the experience of being a refugee, living in exile and the desire to communicate something of their identity to audiences and readers outside their own communities. This is a thriving and growing group which includes Ziba Karbassi, Vida Kashizadeh, Choman Hardi, Amba Bongo, Mir Mahfuz Ali, Darija Stojnic, Aydin Mehmet Ali…

Naturally, most writers articulate their thoughts and ideas in their mother tongue and currently there is a great demand by the writers for translation into English which is a challenging area to be developed. Writers remain marginalised if they do not write in English as publishers are generally unwilling to deploy resources for translation or risk publishing the work of a non-mainstream writer. However, some publishers have been adventurous enough to give a voice to exiled writers and these include Five Leaves (The Bend in the Road and Crossing the Border), Hearing Eye, Saqi Books, Scarlet Press and Haan but many writers are put into the position of self-publishing sometimes with the assistance of Millennium Awards. The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is an acknowledgement of the importance of literature in translation. New magazines have sprung up such as Banipal: Modern Arab Poetry in Translation and Exiled Ink! while magazines such as Modern Poetry in Translation and Index have produced special issues focusing on diaspora voices.  

Two London based organisations exist specifically to address the needs of exiled writers - Exiled Writers Ink! and Artists in Exile, the latter focusing mainly on theatre. Exiled Writers Ink! is an expanding organisation which works in the creative, live literature, theatre, academic, dialogue and educational  fields. It facilitates the wider dissemination of work by exiled writers, raises awareness of the literature of exile and encourages literary creativity in the broadest sense within the refugee communities. It organised a very successful seminar with Index on Censorship at the Soho Theatre and Writers Centre entitled ‘Another Land Another Voice’ and holds regular monthly sessions at the Poetry Café courtesy of the Poetry Society London. Recently it has become noticeable that interest by mainstream organisations is developing. The Festival Hall’s Poetry International included a range of exiled writers as did Hammersmith and Fulham Council’s Worldwide Literature Festival and most mainstream literature organisations such as Apples and Snakes have a growing awareness of the creative contribution made by exiled writers. The festival of Iranian Art and Culture was extremely popular as were events for the wider community organised by refugee arts organisations such as the Afghanistan Cultural and Art Association and Horn Reflections, while National Refugee Week organised by London Arts and the Refugee Council, is a dynamic initiative which includes literature performances. A defining conference organised by the Arts Council of England, British Council and London Arts, was ‘Connecting Flights: New Cultures of the Diaspora’ which informed debate on the policy implications of changing ideas about identity in a global society.

Until recently, most diasporic literary activity took place in London, but the introduction by the Government of the policy of dispersing refugees to the regions, has resulted in exciting, new creative initiatives with refugees outside London. The project ‘Voices in a Strange Land’ run by Exiled Writers Ink! and funded by the Arts Council, involved working with refugees and presenting the work of exiled writers to audiences in Margate, Nottingham, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. In Nottinghamshire, a creative writing project on ‘Home’ engaged the new refugee community with other residents. ‘Writing Diasporas’ at Swansea University was a key conference on the role of travelling and translating writers, artists and intellectuals in the cultural politics of diasporas and nations and formed part of a larger project entitled ‘Axial Writing’