The long literary road to the UK “Race Relations Act”: Colour discrimination in post-war England.

The UK “Race Relations Act” of 1976 was the first by the UK Parliament to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race and to set up a Commission for Racial Equality. Between laws and their enforcement, however, there are the lives of ordinary people for whom race discrimination was (and is) not just a mooted issue but a harsh reality. In Britain, this can be mapped out in the writings of many black writers, mostly from the West Indies, Africa and India. The novels, short stories, poems and plays by such writers as George Lamming, V.S. Naipaul, Wole Soyinka, Hanif Kureishi tell us how difficult it could be to rent a room or find a job or start a family, or to find one’s own identity, when racial barriers are in the way.

 

Relatore

Arturo Cattaneo è Professore Ordinario di Letteratura Inglese presso l'Università Cattolica di Milano. Ha pubblicato libri e saggi in italiano e in inglese. Tra i libri, un lungo saggio creativo, Shakespeare e l'amore (Einaudi, Torino 2019). È autore di A Short History of English Literature (Mondadori, Milano 2019), e di una serie di storie antologiche della letteratura inglese per le scuole superiori (Literary Journeys - Connecting ideas l’ultima, edita da Signorelli, Milano). Ha pubblicato due romanzi: Ci vediamo a settembre (2010, Sedizioni) e La notte inglese (2012, Mondadori).

 

Moderatrice

Laura Cavaleri - Responsabile Area Lingue Mondadori Education