Black British Literature – Kaleidoscope Soup

“Blackness” is multivalent concept that has been shaped by cultural and historical events, from colonial trade to desegregation, these global events have shaped African, American, and British societies as we know them today.

The link below highlights the black experience in the 20th century through the lens of literature. Whereas Malcolm X’s autobiography deconstructs the disillusionment of freedom and equality in America, the poetry of Jackie Kay’s the Adoption Papers explores biracial identity, parenthood, and #LGBTQ+ issues, all of which are themes that are included in Octavia Butler’s dystopian science fiction novel. “Parable Of The Sower”. Individually, the texts present the multifaceted nature of blackness, together they highlight systemic challenges people of the African diaspora have faced.

The authors and titles featured in my post Black Diaspora Literature of the 20th Century illustrate core problems during the cultivation of a black identity, using their lived experience, their poetry, and their allegories to tell the story African diaspora. We live in a post-colonial word, but xenophobia is still a real issue that has no borders, but seeks to build walls of false security. As we draw closer to 2020, let us take a look into the past so that we can focus on co-creating a more inclusive future.

https://kaleidoscopesoup.com/black-diaspora-literature

In solidarity.

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Michael Ray

Bachelors of English Literature
Humboldt State University.

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Editor’s Note: More Black Diaspora Literature of the 20th Century can be found here: [ https://KaleidoscopeSoup.com/Black-Diaspora-Literature ]

Within Jackie Kay’s collection of poetry The Adoption Papers she presents a text that utilizes three different fonts to represent the three dominant voices; each voice is represented by a font, each font assuming the voice of one of the three females (in addition to a few other social voices, including an adoption agent and a desk clerk). The predominant voices within the text are a “birth mother,” an “adoptive mother” and an “adopted daughter.” The voices are “distinguished” through variations in typography; for the daughter, Kay adopts a Palatino typeface; for the adoptive mother she issues a Gill typeface, and for the birth mother Kay distinguishes her by using a Bodoni typeface (Kay 8). The fonts that the poet uses separate the voices in a way that Chris Dobbish describes as “egalitarian” in nature, suggesting that while the fonts are visibly different, one font is not greater than the other fonts. (It is not my intention to enter into a discussion about the multifaceted and intersecting histories of fonts at this point in time). The visual similarities that exist between the adoptive mother’s typeface and the Birth mother’s typeface are, at some points within Kay’s text, indistinguishable from one another.

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