Abstract
This is the first of three chapters that are concerned with contemporary black British short fiction’s ‘local’ interest in urban, regional, and national communities. Jansen argues that Jackie Kay’s short stories radically deconstruct traditional notions of the nation. Set in Scotland or depicting Scottish characters living in England, Kay’s stories conceive of Scottishness as a matter of choice and deliberate association rather than origin (ethnicity) or territory (place of birth or residency). They envision a differential, postethnic, and polycultural Scottish national community that continuously remains open to change. Like Kureishi, Kay uses the specific form of the short story cycle to convey the singular plurality of Scottish communal identity.
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References
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Jansen, B. (2018). Scottish Singular Plurality: Jackie Kay. In: Narratives of Community in the Black British Short Story. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94860-7_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94860-7_7
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