London and the construction of identity

Vol.37,No.2(2016)

Abstract
This paper is concerned with those novels – related to black British Literature – that portray the formation, the transformation and the reformation of personal, cultural, ethnic and national identities within London, a urban space that is multiformed, heterotopic and diasporic. London – that is a character and not just the scenery of those novels – suggests an implosive disorder related to the coexistence of immovable dichotomies – such as identity/plurality, freedom/oppression – that frustrate the protagonists' struggle to define their identities and to construct a place to call home. The post-colonial trans-formation novels by Samuel Selvon, Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi and V.S. Naipaul – investigated in this study – outline a complex and fragmented process of de-construction and re-construction of identity, whose determining factor is the interaction between the urban space and the individuals. The struggle, performed to be themselves or to find their authentic selves, emphasizes the fluidity of identity, revealing it as almost infinitely changeable, erratic, negotiable and unpredictable.

Keywords:
identity; city; transnational; formation / transformation; bildung; postcolonial

Pages:
107–118
References

Acroyd, P. (2000). London. The Biography. London: Chatto & Windus.

Albertazzi, S. (1996). In questo mondo, ovvero quando i luoghi raccontano le storie. Roma: Meltemi.

Ball, J. C. (2004). Imagining London. Postcolonial Fiction and the Transnational Metropolis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bennett, L. (1986). Colonization in Reverse. In: P. Burnett (Ed.), The Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in English (pp. 32–33). Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge.

Callari Galli, M. (1996). Lo spazio dell'incontro. Percorsi nella complessità. Roma: Meltemi.

Chambers, I. (2003). Città senza mappe. In: Paesaggi migratori (pp. 100–122). Roma: Meltemi.

Cuder-Dominguez, P. (2004). Ethnic Cartographies of London in Bernardine Evaristo and Zadie Smith. European Journal of English Studies, 8 (2), 173–188. | DOI 10.1080/1382557042000294710

Fusillo, M. (2014). Passato presente futuro. In: F. de Cristofaro (Ed.), Letterature comparate (pp. 13–31). Roma: Carocci.

Glissant, É. (1998). Poetica del diverso. Roma: Meltemi.

Hall, S. (1990). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In: J. Rutherford (Ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference (pp. 234–256). London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Hall, S. Held, D., & McGrew, T. (1992). Modernity and its Futures. Cambridge: Polity Press/Open University.

Hall, S. (1996). Minimal Selves. In: H. A. Baker jr, M. Diawara, & R. H. Lindenborg (Eds.), Black British Cultural Studies. A Reader (pp. 114–119). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Hayward, H. (2002). The Enigma of V.S. Naipaul. Sources an Contexts. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kureishi, H. (2003). Il Budda delle periferie. Milano: Bompiani.

Lamming, G. (1984). The Pleasures of Exile. London: Allison and Busby.

Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writing on Cities. Oxford: Blackwell.

Manferlotti, S. (1995). La città degli immigrati. Spazio e memoria in Salman Rushdie e Hanif Kureishi. In: C. Pagetti (Ed.), La città senza confini. Studi sull'immaginario urbano nelle letterature di lingua inglese (pp. 300–327). Roma: Bulzoni.

Marcoaldi, F. (2000). Quei denti bianchi e un po' cariati. La Repubblica, 15 Novembre, p. 12.

Naipaul, V. S. (1967). The Mimic Men. London: Andre Deutsch.

Naipaul, V. S. (1988). L'enigma dell'arrivo. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

Naipaul, V. S. (1994). Una via nel mondo. Milano: Adelphi.

Naipaul, V. S. (1999). Un'area di tenebra. Milano: Adelphi.

Rushdie, S. (1991). Patrie Immaginarie. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori.

Sandhu, S. (2003). London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined a City. London: Harpercollins.

Selvon, S. (1956). The Lonely Londoners. London: Longman.

Selvon, S. (1975). Moses Ascending. Oxford: Heinemann.

Selvon, S. (1983). Moses Migrating. Washington: Three Continents Press.

Smith, Z. (2000). Denti Bianchi. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore.

Stein, M. (1999). Interview with David Dabydeen. Wasafiri, 29, 28–32.

Stein, M. (2004). Black British Literature. Novels of Transformation. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.

Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and Place: the Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Vivan, I. (2002). The Impact of Postcolonial Hybridisation on the Britishness of British Literature. In: S. Bassi, S. Bertacco, & R. Bonicelli (Eds), In That Village of Open Doors – Le nuove letterature crocevia della cultura moderna. Atti del I Convegno AISLI. Venezia: Cafoscarina.

Walcott, D. (1981). The Bright Field. In: Selected Poetry (pp. 76–80). London: Heinemann.

Woodcock, B. (1999). I'll Show You Something to Make You Change Your Mind': Post-Colonial Translations of the Streets of London. Kunapipi, 21 (2), 59–62.

Metrics

0

Crossref logo

0


31

Views

0

PDF (Italian) views