Mother country: Leonora Brito writes Wales – black British identity, maternity, and memory in the Welsh short story

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Evans, B. and Ramone, J. ORCID: 0000-0003-3508-4796, 2023. Mother country: Leonora Brito writes Wales – black British identity, maternity, and memory in the Welsh short story. In: R. Carroll and F. Tolan, eds., Routledge companion to literature and feminism. Routledge literature companions . Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9780367410261

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Abstract

Wales has historically been a colonising and colonised location, both subjugated by the English in the British state and complicit in the activities and ideology of empire. The global trade of the Cardiff Docks area – a significant agent in the export market for industrialisation – means that the location has a unique history of cultural and racial mixing, but this place and its practices of industry have often been written through a masculinist lens. Dat’s Love (2017 [1995]), the single published collection by black Welsh short story writer Leonora Brito, illustrates the place of black women in these activities of industry in Cardiff, at once challenging the masculinist memory of Welsh industrialism and addressing the themes more often associated with Welsh men’s short story writing. Significantly, these themes are addressed through the perspectives of her many historical and fictional black women narrators and characters. Brito does not disregard the themes which recur in Welsh women’s short fiction – romance, family, domesticity. On the contrary, she writes of industrialism, agriculture, and work through the framework of these themes, particularly through maternity and memory, engaging with the notion of the postcolonial ‘mother country’ through a specifically Welsh tradition of women’s short story writing.

Item Type:

Chapter in book

Creators:

Evans, B. and Ramone, J.

Publisher:

Routledge

Place of Publication:

Abingdon

Date:

1 December 2023

ISBN:

9780367410261