Saturday, March 25, 2023

Seven novels featuring displacement in multicultural London

Cecile Pin grew up in Paris and New York City. She moved to London at eighteen to study Philosophy at University College London, followed by an MA at King’s College London. She writes for Bad Form Review, was longlisted for their Young Writer’s prize and is a London Writers Awards 2021 winner (Literary Fiction category). Her debut novel is Wandering Souls.

At Lit Hub she tagged seven favorite "novels that deal with displacement in London," including:
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Winner of the Booker Prize, Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives of twelve characters – mostly women, mostly black – in Great-Britain. Almost all are either immigrants or children of immigrants, from Ghana, Nigeria, the Gambia, Barbados, Abyssinia, and Somalia. Besides London, we follow their lives in Cornwall and Newcastle throughout the last hundred years. We witness the discrimination they face, but also the joy they experience, the friendships they form.

Girl, Woman, Other is an ode to black womanhood and modern day Great-Britain. Like [Zadie Smith's] White Teeth, it is an ultimately joyous and triumphant tale, with an array of lovable characters.
Read about another entry on the list.

Girl, Woman, Other is among Kasim Ali's nine top books about interracial relationships.

--Marshal Zeringue