Identity Crisis

Posted on June 11, 2006 in Uncategorized

This year, the Guardian is boasting that the longlist for its Guardian First Book Award is the ‘most diverse yet in ethnic origin and theme’. Authors that made the grade come from Iran, Thailand, India, Malaysia, the US, Kent, Oxford, Neasden, Doncaster and Co. Tyrone and the themes of their books vary even more (transsexuality, mythical lands, tourism and the loss of an identical twin, to name but a few). But how much is this a reflection of current reading tastes?

Successful ‘ethnic’ authors such as Zadie Smith (White Teeth) and Monica Ali (Brick Lane) broke into the publishing industry in a big way, setting the trend for novels about everyday families of different cultures becoming intertwined and struggling simultaneously to integrate themselves and preserve their cultural heritage. Their novels struck the hearts of many people – those belonging to ethnic minorities, as well as those who are interested in, or curious about, other cultures and faiths. They are intelligent, young, female, authors with a dichotomous view of the world – what’s not to like?

Yet behind their writing lie two well-educated women who have grown up in England, and I can’t help feeling that there is something slightly contrived about their writing. Both authors are mixed race – Smith is half-Jamaican, half-English and Ali is half-Bangladeshi, half-English – and both are Oxbridge graduates. Smith is married to Nick Laird, a well-known Irish writer (who, incidentally, is the writer from Co. Tyrone up for the Guardian First Book Award as mentioned above) and Ali is married to Simon Torrance, a management consultant. Zadie Smith even changed her name from ‘Sadie’ when she was 14 to give herself a more ‘exotic’ feel. Smith’s second book, The Autograph Man, shifted the focus away from ethnicity slightly, but with her latest offering, On Beauty, she returns to issues of race and class. James Lasdun in the Guardian describes the Belseys, the principal family in On Beauty as ‘its own little compact multiverse of clashing cultures: the father a white English academic, the mother a black Floridian hospital administrator, one son a budding Jesus freak, the other a would-be rapper and street hustler, the daughter a specimen of US student culture at its most rampagingly overdriven.’

I cannot say I have ever been in the same circumstances as the Jamaican, English or Muslim families in White Teeth, or as the Muslim community in Brick Lane but, being of an ethnic minority, there was something I felt I could identify with – maybe the sense of being on the outside of the dominant culture. It’s a question of just how much we want to read about ‘the familiar’ in a book, how much we need to identify with the character(s) and to what extent we can empathise with them. I imagine that most of us in contemporary British society would find it strange to read an exclusively ‘white’ book, but do those from the ethnic majority find it strange to read a novel predominantly focused on ethnic minority characters? 

Helen Oyeyemi recently catapulted to literary fame with her début novel, The Icarus Girl. A 20-year-old student at …wait for it…Cambridge university, she was born in Nigeria and moved to England at the age of four. She wrote the book whilst studying for her A-Levels and, after sending a sample to Bloomsbury, was promptly handed a two-book deal. The protagonist is the daughter of a Nigerian mother and English father, who travels to Nigeria on holiday and befriends a girl named ‘TillyTilly’ who turns out to be a ghost. Through the book, Oyeyemi seems to be exploring her own feelings of growing up with two cultures, and even states that ‘you can read a lot of books and the main characters are white people – especially in the classics – and after a while you forget that you’re not white, almost, because it’s this big pervasive culture’. Due to her subject matter, she may come across as a mature, perceptive young woman, but some critics have said that the book is too ‘young’ to be read by adults. Although it received a certain amount of critical acclaim, how much of her success is down to fashion, marketing, and the drive of publishers trying to produce the next ‘Zadie’? It is time other cultures and voices were given the space to flourish, but is publishing every other Oxbridge educated female with ethnic roots the way to go about it?

I don’t mean to criticise any of these authors – their writing is very popular and I have enjoyed their books myself, but it makes me question just how much of a position they are in to offer a realistic picture of society, and how much they are simply good storytellers.  They may be the voice of mixed-race Britain, but where is the authentic, foreign, immigrant perspective, rather than these voices hailing from the most hallowed educational institutions in the country?  

Recent events, especially in British society, have raised awareness of multiculturalism and perhaps created a real trend for ethnic writing and embracing the exotic. Recent newspaper reports have shown that cockney rhyming slang is being replaced by Bangladeshi slang in certain parts of London where there are high numbers of immigrants, and that even white youths are incorporating this language into their working class culture. It’s unfair of me to label these authors as ‘ethnic’, seeing as they have all grown up in Britain and their writing is accessible to everyone. All of them draw from their own backgrounds when expressing themselves, and it may be this that appeals to the reader the most: not the chance to read what is familiar to them, but the chance to fall into an unfamiliar world created by someone who is all too familiar with it – vicarious identification, if you will. 
 

The majority of us are interested in other cultures, especially when they are presented to us in an enjoyable, gripping, humorous fashion.  But how ready are we for a more ‘street’ or ‘real’ perspective?  We can only hope that publishers will continue to promote cultural diversity, both in the authors they choose to promote, as well as in content.

As for me, I’m going back to reading Small Island by Andrea Levy – another award-winning novel by a Jamaican author who grew up in Britain. Set during and after the Second World War, this book is predominantly about the challenges faced by Jamaicans who move to Britain and suffer prejudice, and the English people who try to help them.  I just might learn to further identify with people who are in situations as far removed from my own experiences as can possibly be – and it can only make me a more rounded person…can’t it?