ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter quotes Karl XIV Johan’s motto. King of Sweden and Norway from 1818 to 1844, Karl Johan, born Jean Bernadotte, was French and never learned to speak Swedish. His motto embodies what has been said to be the dream of every migrant, to be loved by their adopted people. This chapter takes at its point of departure a close reading of Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, a pioneering account of West Indian migration to the UK. It then fans out to explore other literary and nonfictional accounts of inclusion and exclusion of Black West Indians in the cosmopolitan, but also hierarchical and ruthlessly competitive city, drawing on Naipaul’s Enigma of Arrival as a contrasting case, but also contextualizing Selvon with others writing on the Windrush generation (Stuart Hall, C.L.R. James, Andrea Levy) and their descendants (Zadie Smith, Paul Gilroy, Andrea Levy). Through these comparative readings, the chapter interrogates theories of conviviality and superdiversity in the light of postcolonial uprootedness and racist exclusion.
