Migration, Fiction And Redemption: Coming To London

Abstract Migration, Fiction and Redemption: coming to London in Peter Akinti's Forest Gate and Brian Chikwava's Harare North

London is no stranger to migration but in recent years debate on the subject has grown from a whisper to a roar. But how has this clamour, originating largely from the media and popular politics, been represented in literature? London's migrant communities have long produced texts which compare multiple cultures and societies and carve out a place for newcomers within an imaginary projection of the city, holding up a mirror to migrant experience yet simultaneously combatting a culture of otherness based on ethnicity and origins. Both Harare North by Brian Chikwava and Forest Gate by Peter Akinti examine life in exile post-globalisation: in a world where social mobility has become rarer than ever and changing country has no straightforward correlation with changing economic or social position.

The novels allow the city itself to be somewhat personified: it becomes an entity which can trap you, rob you, test you. They reject a simplistic view of migration as escape to a better place: both Ashvin and the narrator of Harare North are followed to London by their persecutors in Somalia and Zimbabwe respectively. Both books also remind us that there have always been many Londons, some visible, some less so. Older books often investigate journeys to and from London in its role as the 'heart of empire'. Now the centre 'cannot hold': the symbolism of London has changed and the ways it oppresses or saves likewise.

This paper aims to establish what these changes are, and what their implication is for imaginings of London in general and of its migrant communities in particular. The novels could also help us to understand the 'migration debate' from a more cultural and collective perspective. From these two novels and others like them, we can begin to map a comparative, cross-cultural and international picture of how humans seek to change their lives and why. Perhaps migration could even become a metaphor for the human experience more generally, at least within artistic representation?

Clearly similar, yet markedly different in their conclusions, Harare North and Forest Gate offer two (three if we count Ashvin's death) different endings to the story of young black Londoners. This paper will chart the messages implicit in the endings of the two novels, and their impact on a cultural and social projection of migrants in London. Looking at the way the city functions to shape the novels, this paper will research the ways a novel contributes to social commentary, and transcends or reaffirms popular views on London's migrants and minority ethnic communities.