Black British Literature: Novels of Transformation, by Mark Stein. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2004.

"Although Stein's arguments are nuanced and complex, the liveliness of his transparent and often evocative prose makes the book accessible to the non-specialist reader as well. He can juggle the abstract and the concrete in fruitful ways … His theoretical positions on postethnicity, intertextuality, and what he calls "logovorous" modes of reading, are made vivid through his detailed readings of recent novels."

Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Hindu (4 Sep. 2005)

"Black British literature has not been particularly well served by critics and literary historians. So this study is a particularly welcome addition to work in the field. Stein examines fiction by writers with African, South Asian and Caribbean backgrounds, locating it in both historical and literary contexts. The fiction is seen not simply as a reflection of perceived social realities, but as an agent for changing attitudes. To examine Black British fiction’s potential for transformation a potential which is related to the transformation of post-imperial Britain Stein relates it to the Bildungsroman genre. This is one of those comparatively rare studies that manages to combine a wide-ranging, albeit selective, survey with a critically incisive argument. As such it makes a significant contribution to the corpus of critical material available on black British writing."

Journal of Commonwealth Literature 40, 3 (2005). 154-155.

"Stein provides here a fresh, innovative, and much needed exploration of such major writers as Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, and Caryl Phillips, setting them in a fully delineated literary and cultural context. He also brings to our attention the significance of such lesser known but equally inventive writers as Andrea Levy, Jackie Kay, and David Dabydeen. This timely and interesting book is written with a clarity of tone, style, and approach that makes it appropriate for undergraduates and advanced scholars alike."

C. L. Innes, University of Kent, Canterbury

"This comprehensive book exhaustively articulates a critical apparatus for reading black British literature. Stein writes unpretentiously, making his complex ideas accessible to both novices and experts in the field."

Timothy Brennan, University of Minnesota.

In this fascinating book, Mark Stein examines "black British literature," centering on a body of work created by British-based writers with African, South Asian, or Caribbean cultural backgrounds. Linking black British literature to the bildungsroman genre, this study examines the transformative potential inscribed in and induced by a heterogeneous body of texts. Capitalizing on their plural cultural attachments, these texts portray and purvey the transformation of post-imperial Britain. Stein locates his wide-ranging analysis in both a historical and a literary context. He argues that a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach is essential to understanding post-colonial culture and society. The book relates black British literature to ongoing debates about cultural diversity, and thereby offers a way of reading a highly popular but as yet relatively uncharted field of cultural production.

With the collapse of its empire, with large-scale immigration from former colonies, and with ever-increasing cultural diversity, Britain underwent a fundamental makeover in the second half of the twentieth century. This volume cogently argues that black British literature is not only a commentator on and a reflector of this makeover, but that it is simultaneously an agent that is integral to the processes of cultural and social change. Conceptualizing the novel of transformation, this comprehensive study of British black literature provides a compelling analytic framework for charting these processes.

Mark Stein is junior professor of theories of non-European literatures and cultures, University of Potsdam, Germany.

Black British Literature: Novels of Transformation. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

20th-century British literature, Black British and British Asian literature, comparative literature, ethnic, cultural, and postcolonial studies

288 pp. 6 x 9 3 illus.
$23.95 paper 0-8142-5133-1
$69.95 cloth 0-8142-0984-X
$9.95 cdrom 0-8142-9058-2