Publishing Black British Short Stories: The Potential and Place of a Marginalised Form

该项目探索1940年至2020年英国黑人短篇小说的潜力和地位。我将考虑短篇小说是如何在出版商主导的英国黑人写作的圣典之外运作的，该圣典以促进当代多元文化和城市小说为中心。基恩（2015）指出，出版商期望黑人小说应该通过长篇叙事来维护多元文化主义的积极表现，让白人读者“参与”黑人的经历，而斯奎尔斯（2012）讨论了该行业在维持这种叙事成功方面的“守门人”角色。短篇小说通过其对话语等级和边缘地位的颠倒，创造了不同的叙事空间，可以打断和挑战工业主导的黑色书写的同质化。虽然研究更广泛地探讨了后殖民短篇小说（Holden, 2010, 2013;Awadalla & March-Russell, 2013），但英国黑人短篇小说仍然被评论界和商业界所忽视。通过档案研究，我将追溯这种形式的出版历史，它与英国黑人写作“中心”的接触，以及它在杂志、期刊、印刷馆藏和在线空间中的作用。这个项目建立在我一流的学士学位论文，它研究了21世纪初英国黑人成长小说的营销，以及目前的2万字MRes论文，它调查了两个最近的故事集在文学市场上的地位。从我的学士学位和硕士学位研究中，我发展了广泛而深入的学科知识，熟悉了理论和批判性辩论，我将在我的博士学位中扩展这些知识。我已经开始向公众传播我的初步研究想法：我已被委托为文学百科（一个主要的在线资源）撰写关于蝴蝶鱼和说话的文章（Okojie, 2015, 2016），并受邀在南大文学文化会议上发表论文（重拾身份）。

This project explores the potential and place of black British short stories from 1940 to 2020. I willconsider how short fiction operates outside of the publisher-led canonisation of black writing in Britain,which centres on the promotion of contemporary multicultural and urban novels. Kean (2015) notespublishers' expectations that black fiction should uphold a positive representation of multiculturalismthrough longformnarratives which allow white readers to 'engage' with black experiences, andSquires (2012) discusses the 'gatekeeping' role of the industry in maintaining the success of suchnarratives. Short fiction, via its inversion of discursive hierarchies and marginal position, createsdissident narrative spaces which can interrupt and challenge the industry-led homogeneity of blackwriting. While studies have explored postcolonial short fiction more broadly (Holden, 2010, 2013;Awadalla & March-Russell, 2013), black British short stories remain critically and commerciallyneglected. Through archival research I will trace the form's history of publication, its engagement withthe 'centre' of black British writing, and its function in magazines, journals, printed collections andonline spaces.This project builds from my First-Class BA dissertation, which examined the marketing of black Britishbildungsromane in the early 21st century, and current 20,000-word MRes dissertation, whichinvestigates the position of two recent story collections in the literary marketplace. From my BA andMRes research I have developed broad and deep subject knowledge and familiarity with theoreticaland critical debates that I will extend in my PhD. I have already begun disseminating my initial researchideas in public: I have been commissioned to write articles on Butterfly Fish and Speak Gigantular(Okojie, 2015, 2016) for the Literary Encyclopaedia (a major online resource), and was invited to delivera paper at the NTU Literary Cultures Conference (Reclaiming Identity).