ABSTRACT
Studies of contemporary British writing have underlined the claiming of public space by immigrant groups. In Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis, John McLeod describes an emerging body of contemporary British writing that is 'confident, cognizant of its transcultural past, optimistic, full of creative energies nurtured from the conjunction of different times and places in both city and self'. Bandele's characters inhabit Brixton and London with an awareness of history, of the present and of the diversity of stories layered within these constantly renewing and changing streets. That it is transformed by the Brixton population for new uses in the late twentieth century, that the celebration of national preeminence fades within space refunctioned to serve the needs of a predominately Black Atlantic community populating Brixton, that it can become a subject of representation for the art of a young mixed-race British woman with an African name, all demonstrate the transnational character of Brixton High Street and of London.
