Next Thursday evening, join the book launch of Unhomely England in Post-Imperial British Novels by Dr Soody Gholami, which will be introduced by Marina. The event is from 6-8pm, and is taking place at Birkbeck Central (Malet St, London WC1E 7HY).

Soody’s book investigates the nature of ‘home’ and nation in post-imperial British novels, which deal with the loss of Empire and its uncanny presence ‘at home’. It delves into histories of British colonialism, the ‘end’ of the Empire, decolonisation, post-Second World War nation-building, and devolution; all of which resurface in four selected novels of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries: Marina Warner’s Indigo (1992), Caryl Phillips’s The Nature of Blood (1997), Julian Barnes’s Arthur & George (2005), and Zadie Smith’s NW (2012).

Gholami’s Unhomely England investigates the novels’ engagement with postwar government policies, specifically in the areas of social housing, the British Welfare State and the National Curriculum. Exploring the writers’ different depictions of home interiors, architectural features and British local landscapes, this book argues that post-imperial British novels continue to highlight racial, gendered and class inequalities that undergird domestic perceptions of belonging and national identity in post-imperial Britain.

Sign up to attend here.