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

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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).