Drawing on texts from the writings of Fanon and Orwell to Ali G. and The Office, After Empire, Paul Gilroy explores Britain's failure to come to terms with the loss of its empire and pre-eminent global standing. 200pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

Set in the 18th century this story of slaves' struggle for emancipations based on the author's search for his own roots. Notes, bib, xi, 296pp. BLACK AMBER BOOKS, 190196907X

A semi autobiographical account of the author's first trip to India, the land of his forebears, at the age of twenty nine. 290pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330487167

Inter-related tales on the theme of returning home are intimately Caribbean in flavour, but with a piquant French twist. When Miss Vanesa's artistic club meets on the narrative verandah, there's seduction and sardines, jacuzzis and world affairs to keep them busy. Nora, Fred and Vanesa like to discuss the foolishness of men and draft letters to exclude undesirables. They ponder Arwell's dreams of a perfect marriage to Condoleezza Rice - is this the explanation for his sudden interest in classical music? 263pp, UK. TINDAL STREET PRESS.

This is a personal quest to explore and fully understand the painful, ongoing legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. Phillips journeys to three pivotal cities: Liverpool, a city constructed on the slave trade; Elmina, on the west coast of Ghana, site of the most important slave fort in Africa; and Charleston in the American south, where one third of black Americans were bought and sold. 221pp, UK. VINTAGE, 0099429969

Landmark publication calling attention to a black Atlantic culture that transcends ethnicity and nationality challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural stud-ies. Index, notes, xi, 261pp, UK. VERSO, 0860916758

Cantering on a body of work created by British based writers with African, South Asian, or Caribbean cultural backgrounds and linking black British literature to the bildungsroman genre, this study examines the transformative potential inscribed in and induced by a heterogeneous body of texts. Capitalizing on their plural cultural attachments, these texts portray and purvey the transformation of post imperial Britain. Argues that a cross cultural and interdisciplinary approach is essential to understanding post colonial culture and society. Relates black British literature to ongoing debates about cultural diversity, and offers a way of reading a highly popular but as yet relatively uncharted field of cultural production. With the collapse of its empire, with large scale immigration from former colonies, and with ever increasing cultural diversity, Britain underwent a makeover in the second half of the twentieth century. This volume cogently argues that black British literature is not only a commentator on and a reflector of this makeover, but that it is simultaneously an agent that is integral to the processes of cultural and social change. Conceptualizing the novel of transformation, this comprehensive study of British black literature provides an analytic framework for charting these processes. Index, bib, notes, 243pp, USA. OHIO U P.

2004 0814251331 Paperback

Using twenty eight interviews, the author documents the history of black people in British television acknowledging their long struggle to gain recognition in television drama and documentary. Index, 224pp, UK. BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE PUBLISHING, 0851703291

1992 Paperback

Welcome to a world turned upside down. One minute, Doris is playing hide-and-seek with her sisters in the fields behind their cottage. The next, someone puts a bag over her head and she ends up in the hold of a slave ship sailing to the New World. When she finally arrives on a strange tropical island, Doris discovers that she is, in fact, a pig-ugly savage with a brain the size of a pea, whose only purpose in life is to please her mistress. While experiencing the hardships of life in the sugarcane fields, she dreams of escape, of finding those she has loved and lost, and of returning home to her motherland, England. By a stunning reversal, Evaristo shows Africans enslaving 'whytes', and the European reader re-thinks the horrors, seeing them inflicted on Europeans, and seeing all the double-think of slavery applied by Africans to Europeans. 272pp, UK. HAMISH HAMILTON.

'I could have been born and raised in Africa. But my Spirit was in too much of a rush to be reincarnated... At six weeks I was chucked out into the new year of 1965 which wasn't prepared to welcome an African baby, abandoned on a harsh English winter's day.' So begins this novel telling Pauline's spirited and moving story of her childhood and teenage years growing up black, female and in and out of foster homes and detention units, and back and forth to Dr Barnardo's 'Village' in Essex in the 1970s and '80s. 242pp, UK. SERPENT'S TAIL.

A novel about the life of a woman born in Bangladesh, married in London and whose calm life is turned upside down by the possibilities which come with self realisation. 491pp, UK. BLACK SWAN, 0552771155

Tapan Ali, a Bangladeshi student, falls in love with England and marries Adela in order to remain in the country. But his marriage of convenience collapses and Tapan is thrust into a new England, a country inhabited by illegal immigrants and National Front violence. 295pp, UK. PEEPAL TREE.

An exploration of the uncertainty that defined the period of time between the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves. Phillips tells the story of Emily Cartwright, a young Englishwoman sent to visit her father's plantation in the West Indies, and of Cambridge, the plantation slave struggling to maintain his dignity in a transient world. 184pp, UK. FABER, 0571204074

The British painter Chris Ofili was born to Nigerian parents in Manchester in 1968 and is one of the most notable painters of his generation. He lives and works in London and Trinidad. Ofili's best-known works are complex and highly decorative canvases, built up from layers of paint combined with other materials including sequins, glitter, map pins and images cut from magazines. Their subject matter often refers to his Nigerian heritage and the wider African American and Afro-Caribbean experience, making reference to sources as diverse as Zimbabwean cave paintings, blaxploitation movies, comic books, funk and hip-hop album covers, pornography and the Bible. 176pp, UK. TATE PUBLISHING.

Now in paperback. Meet Tommy Akhtar, cricket aficionado, devoted son, some time private investigator and sometime idol to West London's thug-lites. He's just woken up with another hangover and combed a parting in the pelt on his tongue when his next case comes through the door. Explores the underbelly of the cultural mix that makes up London and questions just what it really means to be British right now. 329pp, UK. PENGUIN.

A collection of urban songs, ballads, raps and poems taking in London, America, Nigeria, Utopia, Kurdistan, Jamaica, Wales, Palestine and Ethiopia. 64pp, UK. BLOODAXE.

An exploration of contemporary England and the lives of the people who make their home in a land of foreign customs and far from their former lives. 312pp, UK. VINTAGE, 0099428881

In these nine stories, the author develops the themes of cultural conflicts and synchretism. 216pp, UK . VINTAGE UK, 0099533014

A novel in verse telling the story of Zuleika, a sassy girl about town, hellraiser and bored ex-child-bride living in Londinium, AD 211. The daughter of Sudanese immigrants made good, she is married off to a rich, fat Roman and is left stranded in luxury until the Emperor himself comes to town, bringing with him love and danger. xi, 252pp, UK. PENGUIN BOOKS 0140297812

The story of a young Indian from the Caribbean arriving in post imperial England and consciously, over many years, finding himself as a writer. 387pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330487159

Angela's dad sailed to England from Jamaica in 1948 on the Empire Windrush. Six months later her mum joined him in his one room in Earls Court. Twenty years and four children later, Mr Jacob has become seriously ill and starts to move unsteadily through the care of the National Health Service. As Angela tries to help her mother through this ordeal, she finds herself reliving her childhood years. 250pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE.

A compelling anthology of extracts from fiction, opinion pieces and poetry by British writers who were born beyond Britain's shore redefining the notion of 'English' literature. Contributors include Ben Okri, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Shiva Naipaul, Doris Lessing, Jean Rhys, and C.L.R. James. Index, 315pp, UK. FABER, 0571192408

The story of Leila, a nineteen year old woman living on a small Caribbean island during the 1950s. Her dissatisfaction with her life leads her to leave for England with her family where she must come to terms with her decisions. 205pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099468581

It's 2006 in Forest Gate, East London. Suicides are on the rise as defeated youths make irreversible decisions. In a community where poverty is kept close and passed from one generation to the next, two teenage boys, best friends Ashvin and James, stand on top of twin tower blocks. Facing each other across the abyss of London's urban sprawl, they say final goodbyes in the final stages of a suicide pact. The boys jump together, each with a rope around his neck. Only Ashvin dies. Set in London, Somalia and Brazil, Peter Akinti's debut explores the daily trauma that confronts teenagers brought together from all over the world to London. 192pp, UK. JONATHAN CAPE.

Furious and perplexed when her parents suddenly announce their intention to retire back home to Jamaica, Faith Jackson makes her own journey there. Here, through the weave of her Aunt Coral's storytelling, a cast of ancestors unfolds, stretching back to Cuba and Panama, Harlem and Scotland, as Faith uncovers a rather different past to the one found in history books. 339pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE, 0747261148

Malik Solanka steps out of his life one day and flees to New York, abandoning his family. He feels that the fury within will become dangerous and arrives in a country of unprecedented plenty to erase himself. But in this big city, fury is all around him. 259pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099421860

Using the founding myths and stories of East and West, the author tells the story of Vina Aspara, a famous and much loved singer, caught up in a devastating earthquake and never seen again. 575pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099766019

Teenage fiction. Makeeda is a fourteen-year-old Ghanaian whose love of all things western causes her family to despair. She is always being compared to the dutiful and obedient Afua, her Aunt Grace's daughter. But it seems that whatever Makeeda does, it ends up in trouble. She just wants to hang out with the fit Nelson and her mates, and forget about the Ghanaian stuff. But when she has to do a school project, she begins to understand the depth of her cultural heritage and wonders if she can honour her culture and enjoy life as a London teenager. Gloss, 220pp, UK. PICCADILLY PRESS.

Willie Chandran is the product of an unhappy union between a low caste mother and a father constantly at odds with life. Sick of his half life, Willie is drawn to England and the immigrant and bohemian communities of post war London. 226pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330485172

A volume of prose and poetry exploring the intersections of the history of the colliding cultures of Africa, Europe and the Caribbean and the nature of poetic tradition. The author focuses on the journey of the Yoruba gods with slaves from West Africa, the Amerindian myths and the transformations of each within the creolising, hybridising culture of the Caribbean. 88pp, UK. PEEPAL TREE, 1900715759

The epic story of one man's quest for autonomy and a place he can call home, as Trinidad moves towards independence. 623pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330487191

A novel with two supporting narratives. In the first narrative, an Indian servant in Washington becomes an American citizen but he has ceased to be part of the flow. In the second, a disturbed Asian West Indian in London, in jail for murder, has never really known where he is. The main novel is set in a war torn country of Africa, where two English people had found freedom. A freedom now being eroded. 247pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330487051

In the years just after the American Revolution, London was the destination of thousands of black Americans who had fought for liberty on the side of the British. Unable to find work and marginalised by British society, a group of men decide to carry out a robbery that would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams. 178pp, UK. QUARTET.

Darkly comic novel. Pierre is fourteen years old. His mother is dead. His little brothers back home in Brussels, in the African quarter. His grandmother Missy’s there too, nursing a stack of voodoo recipes and the means to cast a long-distance hex. So how come Pierre’s still stuck in a flat in Camden with the white man he’s not quite comfortable calling Dad? UK. PARTHIAN BOOKS.

New edition. A story told through poems in which two diverse cultures meet in a bitter-sweet marriage blessed with a tribe of bright and beautiful children. The complexities of past and present are explored through Lara, the spiritually gifted fourth child, as she grows up as a mixed race child in ‘60s and ‘70s London. 192pp, UK. BLOODAXE BOOKS.

A reprint of a classic award-winning novel of immigrant life in London in the 1950s. 160pp, UK. PENGUIN BOOKS.

New edition. Biography of Mary Seacole, recently voted greatest black Briton in history. Jamaican-born Seacole, undaunted by a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the authorities, set up the British Hotel just behind the lines at Balaclava. Here she treated soldiers, becoming famous for her medical assistance and hospitality, before settling eventually in Britain. Index, bib, notes, refs, b/w illustrations, maps, xiv, 288pp, UK. CONSTABLE.

Born at the midnight of India's independence, Saleem is handcuffed to history by the coincidence. He is one of 1001 children born that midnight, each of them endowed with an extraordinary talent. 463pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099578514

A novel evoking a colonial man's experience in the post colonial world. Born of Indian heritage, raised in the British dependent Caribbean island of Isabella, and educated in England, forty year old Ralp Singh has spent a lifetime struggling against the torment of cultural displacement. 274pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330487108

'Moor' Zogoiby, only son of a wealthy Indian family, finds himself at crisis point after a tragic love affair. He first plunges into a life of depravity in Bombay before leaving for involvement in financial scandal in London and, ultimately, violence in Spain. 437pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 009959241X

An exploration of new kinds of perceptions that emerge by activating concepts invented by musical pioneers. 221pp, UK. QUARTET.

1998 0704380250 Paperback

A new case for Private Eye is to find a bride in the city for a mysterious millionaire from the country. It sounds like a straightforward case, but it is anything but straightforward. 336pp, UK. ABACUS.

The story of two sisters, Olive and Vivien, born in London to Jamaican parents and brought up on a council estate. Vivien's life is a mix of friendships, youth clubs, skinhead violence, A levels, discos and college. Olive, three years older and a skin shade darker, has a very different tale to tell. 282pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE, 0747252130

Essays reflecting on the new cultural plurality discussing the increasingly central role of the migrant and the refugee in the modern world. As well as analysing the responsibility of the writer in a postcolonial world, Phillips looks at the work of Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul, J.M. Coetzee and Nadine Gordimer, Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Marvin Gaye. 309pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099428172

Two novels and a collection of stories capturing the rhythms of life on the Caribbean and England. Includes the works Suffrage of Elvira, Mr Stone and the Knights Companion, and A Flag on the Island. 546pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330491180

An engaging novel about two pre-teen misfits who find a 90-year-old foetus in a lab storeroom and set out to return it to its rightful home. '...a fascinating read' (Giles Foden). 'Magnificent: an important and moving story about the deeply embedded presence of Africa in England Today' (Zoe Wicomb). 265pp, UK. AYEBIA.

New, smaller-format edition. At the house on Zwarterzusterstraat, four very different women have made their way from Africa to claim for themselves the riches of Europe. Sisi, Ama, Efe and Joyce are prostitutes, the girls who stand in the windows of the red-light district, promising to make men's dreams come true - if only for half an hour and fifty euros. The murder of Sisi, the most enigmatic of the women, shatters their already fragile world and as the women gather to mourn, the stories they have kept hidden are finally told. 304pp, UK. VINTAGE UK.

A fictional peek into the beauty industry, spiced with some wild pagan fantasy, mixing of ancient Yoruba magic with the fast moving world of cosmetics and high fashion. 370pp, UK. STAMFORD HOUSE PUBLISHING.

New in paperback. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the long and fascinating history of black people in the British Isles, from African auxiliaries stationed on Hadrian's Wall in the 2nd century AD, through John Edmonstone, who taught taxidermy to Charles Darwin, Mary Seacole, the 'Black Florence Nightingale', and Walter Tull, footballer and First World War officer, to our own day. It considers such key concepts as Emancipation and Reparations. It is also timely: the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority highlighted in their annual report of December 2005 presents the need to give more attention to the wider teaching of black history. OCBBH brings together a unique collection of articles which provides an overview of the black presence in Britain, and the rich and diverse contribution made to British society. Index, bib, chronology, 592pp, UK. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.

The autobiographical story of Prem who moves to London to become a nurse after his parents die and he is forced to leave his farm where papaws and bananas once grew. 121pp, UK. BOOK GUILD.

An exploration of the imaginative transformation of London by African, Asian, Caribbean and South Pacific writers since the 1950s. The writers presented are Sam Selvon, Colin MacInnes, Doris Lessing, V.S. Naipaul, Janet Frame, Buchi Emecheta, Joan Riley, Grace Nichols, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie, David Dabydeen, Bernardine Evaristo and Fred D'Aguiar. Index, bib, x, 210pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

Stirring collection of poems about community, the police, the true nature of power. 79pp, UK. BLOODAXE BOOKS, 1852243724

Explores how writers such as Amos Tutuola, George Lamming, Samuel Selvon, VS Naipaul, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, and Wole Soyinka came to be published in London in important educational series such as the Three Crown Series and African Writers Series. Low takes account of recent debates in the discipline of book history, especially issues that deal with social, cultural, and economic questions of authorship, publishing histories, canon formation, and the produc-tion, distribution and reception of texts in the literary market place. Searching publishing archives for readers reports, editorial correspondence, and interventions, this book represents a necessary explora-tion of postwar publishing contexts and the dissemination of texts from London that is crucial to literary histories of the postcolonial book. 200pp, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

Updated edition of the teachers' aid, introducing West Indian and black British literature. Its history and major themes. Includes suggestions for further reading. Index, 190pp, UK. HANSIB PUBLISHING, 187051842X

Provocative and lyrical poems bridging the gap between the Black Arts Movement and hip hop. 60pp, USA. AFRICA WORLD PRESS.

When two Indians, Gibreel Farishta, a movie star and Saladin Chamcha, a Bombay expatriate plummet from the sky after the explosion of their jetliner, they become protagonists in the eternal struggle against good and evil. 547pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0963270702

Cory and Gary are cousins growing up on an Estate in West London. Young, black and smart, they can't wait to leave the poverty trap. But their escape routes are as different as their personalities. 344pp, UK. ABACUS, 0349108765

A darkly comic political novel about public life, historical imperatives and violence set in Pakistan. 287pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099578611

Gilbert Joseph was one of several thousand Jamaican men who joined the RAF to fight against Hitler. Returning to England as a civilian he finds himself treated very differently. London is decrepit, recovering from war and on the cusp of great changes. Levy delicately handles the themes of empire, prejudice, war and love in this novel. Winner of the Orange Prize 2004. 533pp, UK. HODDER HEADLINE, 075530750X

Taking its cue from the murder of the daughter of a black MP this is a contemporary thriller that exposes the underbelly of modern Britain. 303pp, UK. ABACUS, 0349115095

An exploration of new paradigms for social work and human services using the perspectives that emerge from black communities. Refs, xiii, 165pp, UK. BRITISH ASSOCIATION OF SOCIAL WORKERS, 1861780494

Set on the Greenside Estate in West London, this novel starts with the arrival of newcomer Elisha. The author tells her story and the people she becomes involved with, Little Stacey, Orin and Nathan. Nathan's pirate radio station Midnight FM provides the soundtrack to the story. Includes a free CD. 310pp, UK. ABACUS, 0349111804

A streetwise and funny account of London life and love from a writer of Nigerian descent. Street smart Dele and his sister Dapo want to make London their own, but it's a city of violence and politics, as well as love. 238pp, UK. ABACUS, 0349108722

Stanley Williams, angst-ridden banker and boffin, wonders whether there's more to life than his daily nine-to-five grind. One night he's dragged to a disco at Piccadilly Circus and there he meets Jessie: artiste, motormouth, ducker and diver. She swoops Stanley out of his soulless life and off on a roller-coaster road trip across Europe, bringing him face to face with a host of forgotten luminaries from the rich mix of black European history and literature. 288pp, UK. PENGUIN.

New edition with a foreword by Paul Gilroy. This classic book chronicles the history of black people in Britain from Roman times to the present looking at prejudice, the slave trade, challenges to Empire and social change. The author also profiles famous names such as Mary Seacole, Ignatius Sancho, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw and Olaudah Equiano. Index, notes, xiii, 656pp, UK. PLUTO PRESS.

A decade of incisive non fiction. Amongst the topics discussed include the Wizard of Oz, India and Indian writing, Edward Said, J.M. Coetzee and Arundati Roy. Rushdie also describes living through the Iranian fatwa and explores the themes of frontiers. Index, 454pp, UK. VINTAGE UK, 0099421879

New edition. Gilroy's classic explores the relationship between race, class and nation. With a new introduction by the author. 366pp, Bibliography, UK. ROUTLEDGE.

A powerful collection of poetry addressing the struggles of Black Britain. Includes poems written while working with barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case. 87pp, UK. BLOODAXE BOOKS.

A non fiction account of the author's journey to the Old South, discussing the theme of slavery in the New World. The third book in a trilogy. 307pp, UK. PICADOR, 0330487183

Now in paperback. Novel exploring childhood and separation. Twins Georgia and Bessie share theirs with siblings and parents who are from Yorkshire and Nigeria respectively. 230pp, UK. VINTAGE.

Two plays dramatising the modern rituals of identity and initiation in black American communities. Gloss, 139pp, UK. NSIBIDI AFRICANA PUBLISHERS.

2003 0972224181 Paperback

Posthumous collection of poetry and short verses. BNS, 138pp, USA. RED SEA PRESS, 0865439702

The first book length study of dub poetry, its roots in African oral traditions and its influence on the politics and music of eighties Jamaica. 262pp, THE NETHERLANDS. RODOPI !, 9051835493

Revised and updated edition. Examines the novels and non fiction of V.S. Naipaul looking at the development of his writing and criticism of his work by writers and postcolonial theorists. BNS, 240pp, UK. PALGRAVE/MACMILLAN.

A collection of short stories about the city's underbelly by rising stars of the London literary scene. 302pp, UK. X PRESS, 1902934237

These stories share a common concern with the experiences of migration, poverty, racism and sexism, with human fragility and human strength. BNS, 120pp, UK. PEEPAL TREE, 1900715511

The autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame once rivalled Florence Nightingale's. Mary Seacole travelled widely before arriving in London and later the Crimea, where she acted as doctor and 'mother' to British soldiers. Includes a new introduction placing the text in its historical and political contexts. Gloss, notes, 224pp, UK. PENGUIN BOOKS LTD(UK).

An examination of the new black British writers in Britain, born in Britain and writing about Britain from a specific British perspective. This collection of essays puts the work of British-born writers of African and Caribbean parentage under the microscope, examining themes of alienation, belonging, gender politics, identity, language and madness. Includes essays on Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith, Benjamin Zephaniah, Leone Ross and Jackie Kay. 384pp, UK. HANSIB PUBLISHING.