Conclusion

Abstract

After a brief summary of the study’s main findings, the concluding chapter argues that the contemporary black British short story differs significantly from black British writing in other genres. While the black British novel and drama have only begun to widen their scope beyond exclusively black British themes after the turn of the millennium, the black British short story has experimented with a postethnic stance from the mid-1980s onwards. In doing so, it has early on shown a pronounced tendency to raise questions of communal belonging that surpass the postcolonial context in which it is produced. By treating community as an ontological concern, the contemporary black British short story ultimately exposes human beings’ singularly plural interconnection. Jansen suggests that the genre serves many writers as a vehicle to experiment with a ‘new humanism’ (Frantz Fanon), a post-universalist ‘planetary humanism’ (Paul Gilroy) that proposes an alternative politics and ethics of community.