Writing home

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When the SS Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury docks in 1948 with 492 Caribbean ex-servicemen, it heralded the start of post-war migrations to Britain, shaping modern multicultural society. Caribbean writers played a crucial role in this transformation, establishing the West Indian novel and pioneering black writing in Britain. Over the next fifty years, their works reflected evolving notions of "home" amid ongoing economic migration. David Ellis analyzes six key figures whose writings chart the emergence of black Britain. For Sam Selvon, George Lamming, and E. R. Braithwaite, writing about home serves as a literature of reappraisal, revealing the clash between imperial myths and the realities of immigrant life. The unresolved consequences of this reappraisal are evident in the works of Andrew Salkey, Wilson Harris, and Linton Kwesi Johnson, where radicalism emerges as a response to the rejection faced by black communities in an increasingly divided Britain during the 1970s. Finally, the novels of Caryl Phillips, Joan Riley, and David Dabydeen reflect a more introspective literature, as the concept of home shifts from the Caribbean to Britain. With contextual and biographical insights, this work offers a rich literary and social history of black Britain's emergence in the latter half of the twentieth century.