ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the enduring key themes of postcolonial social realism fiction related to social and ethnic inclusion and exclusion, tropes, and motifs. It addresses some of the emerging themes of British Asian-ness and focuses on the strength of transnational links and cultural and economic flows and contraflows, always in transition and movement, as they are fictionalized in Sahota’s novel. The chapter focuses on topography, and the impact of place and surroundings, especially in an urban setting, on the forging of feelings of belonging. Sunjeev Sahota’s novels stand as a radical critique of cosmopolitanism, portraying a “crisis of conviviality” within the metropolis. The failed cosmopolitan conviviality is deeply tied up with issues around political literacy and class, as well as intolerance and Islamophobia, which have given rise to new-old forms of right-wing extremisms invested in combating neoliberal globalism.
