HYBRID FAMILIES IN POSTCOLONIAL NARRATIVES: SMALL ISLAND BY ANDREA LEVY AND LARA BY BERNARDINE EVARISTO
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2025.17.11Keywords:
urban narrative, postcolonial London, Andrea Levy, Bernardine Evaristo, hybrid identityAbstract
Postcolonial urban narratives offer rereading of a metropolis from migrants’ perspectives through the description of their experience of arriving and settling in a city along with questioning the monolithic British national identity. This paper draws on postcolonial theory to examine the complex constructions of family and identity in Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island (2004) and Bernardine Evaristo’s novel-in-verse Lara (2009), focusing on the diasporic experiences of migrant families in postcolonial London. This paper will also put a particular emphasis on the children born to white British mothers and Black fathers whose hybrid identities disrupt conventional notions of nationality and belonging.
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