The race problem with the Booker
Activer le mode zenAlex Wheatle
Although without much plot, I enjoyed Stephen Kelman's Pigeon English, especially the narrative voice of 11-year-old Harrison that was laced with humour, innocence and authenticity. The story, [which features the internal voice of a pigeon] could have done without the pigeon's perspective but I hope it secures a victory at the forthcoming Man Booker ceremony because depictions of the black underclass in the UK are so rare in literary fiction.
I do wonder why it had to take a white author to explore the black underprivileged to finally attract the attention of a major award.
Encouraged by the success of Irvine Welsh's Scottish working-class dialect-driven Trainspotting, long-listed for the 1993 Booker Prize, and by James Kelman's Booker-winning How Late It Was, also written in an uncompromising Scottish vernacular, I began to make notes on my own debut novel, Brixton Rock, intending my characters to speak in the unique young black Brixtonian argot of 1980.
Pour citer cette ressource :
"The race problem with the Booker", La Clé des Langues [en ligne], Lyon, ENS de LYON/DGESCO (ISSN 2107-7029), octobre 2011. Consulté le 24/04/2024. URL: https://cle.ens-lyon.fr/anglais/archives/archives-revue-de-presse/the-race-problem-with-the-booker