Reading Contemporary Black British and African American Women Writers

Jean Wyatt is a Professor of English at Occidental College, USA.Sheldon George is a Professor of English at Simmons University, USA.

"This is such an important volume for developing an underexplored area of critical theory, and there is a sense of urgency about the endeavor of this collection, shared across essays. It establishes an excellent foundation for future work in the field." --Helen Cousins (Newman University), Postcolonial Text Vol 16 No 2 (2021)"Working at the intersection of race and gender, the insightful and engaging essays collected herein open up space for readers to better understand their own ethical positioning by better understanding the nuances of narrative as a means of ethical communication." --James J. Donahue, SUNY Potsdam, New York, US"Offering an important corrective to the notion that black-authored works are little more than social texts, the fourteen contributors to Wyatt and George’s collection make a compelling and spirited case for the rigorous analysis of literary form in the works of black women authors. This is an important and innovative book that will help to reorient and reenergize the scholarly conversation and critical practice surrounding the works of contemporary African American and Black British women writers."--J. Brooks Bouson, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, US

• Introduction: Narrative Theory and Contemporary Black Women WritersJean Wyatt and Sheldon GeorgePart 1: African American Women Writers: Narrative Form, Race, Ethics Chapter 1. At the Crossroads of Form and Ideology: Disidentification in Claudia Rankine’s CitizenCatherine Romagnolo, Professor of English, Lebanon Valley College, USA Chapter 2. "She was miraculously neutral": Feeling, Ethics and Metafiction in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s AmericanahJennifer Terry, Associate Professor of English, Durham University, UKChapter 3. Ableism and the Reproduction of Racial Difference in Nella Larsen’s Passing and Toni Morrison’s "Recitatif"Milo Obourn, Associate Professor of English, Brockport State University, USA Chapter 4. "When We Speak of Otherness": Narrative Unreliability and the Ethics of Othering in Toni Morrison’s Jazz and Home Herman Beavers, Professor of English and Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USAChapter 5. Learning to Listen in Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing Stephanie Li, Professor of English, Indiana University Bloomington, USAChapter 6. Maternal Sovereignty: Destruction and Survival in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the BonesNaomi Morgenstern, Associate Professor of English and American Literature, University of Toronto, CanadaChapter 7. Narrating the Raced Subject: Toni Morrison’s Jazz and the Literature of ModernismSheldon George, Professor of English, Simmons University, USAPart 2: Black British Women Writers: Narrative Form, Race, Ethics Chapter 8. Swing Time: Zadie Smith’s Aesthetic of Active Ambivalence Daphne Lamothe, Associate Professor Africana Studies, Smith College, USAChapter 9. Zadie Smith’s Narratives of the Absurd: A Social Vision Represented through HumorSarah Ilott, Lecturer in English and Film, Manchester Metropolitan University, UKChapter 10. Buchi Emecheta: Storyteller, Sociologist, and Citizen of the WorldPamela Bromberg, Professor of English, Simmons University, USA Chapter 11. "Where are you (really) from?" Transgender ethics, ethics of unknowing, and transformative adoption in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet and Toni Morrison’s Jazz Pelagia Goulimari, English, University of Oxford, UKChapter 12. White Allyship and Narrative Dissonance in Andrea Levy’s Small IslandAgata Szczeszak-Brewer, Professor of English, Wabash College, USAChapter 13: "Civis Romana sum": Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe and the Emancipatory Poetics of (Multi-) Cultural CitizenshipDeirdre Osborne (Reader in English Literature, Goldsmiths, University of London)Chapter 14. Reinventing the Gothic in Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching: Maternal Ethics and Racial Politics Jean Wyatt, Professor of English, Occidental College, USA