In 1988, the late Ghanaian writer and filmmaker Kwesi Owusu edited Storms of the Heart: An Anthology of Black Arts & Culture, a collection of writings and images by Black artists in Britain, including Ben Okri on Shakespeare, Shobana Jeyasingh on Indian dance theatre, Jacob Ross on decolonising language, an interview with Ntozake Shange, and early pieces from the artist Sonia Boyce. Its intention was to document the advances made in Black diasporic arts in postwar Britain, to give voice to the creative and political concerns of practitioners, and importantly, to push back against the routine ghettoisation and marginalisation of their work. As a young writer aware of such realities, it was a huge inspiration for me.
Courttia Newland’s essay collection The Art of Opposition is entirely his own work, but it has a similar impact, mainly because of its provision of a space for Black or “othered” creatives to feel supported and understood in their endeavours, and as a counter to the pressures of the mainstream. Newland, a novelist, screenwriter and playwright, is no stranger to these pressures himself, his work is sometimes subject to the dismissiveness of an industry that expects writers to serve commercial imperatives. In these erudite, fierce and clear-minded essays, he draws on his substantial experience and cultural knowledge to emphasise “the greater goal of saying what we mean”.
Newland had early success with his debut, The Scholar, the story of two cousins mired in drug violence on a west-London council estate. His gritty brand of “urban” fiction was better received by the publishing world than the experimental, Afrocentric science fiction he was burning to write (a recent example being his 2021 novel A River Called Time), and he consistently found himself working in opposition to what the mainstream demanded. In the essay Unseen Object/Observed Subject, he reflects on criticism levelled at the successful TV drama Top Boy – that it was a “roadman drama” or “trauma porn”, and played into negative Black stereotypes. This was a complaint also made about his own work in that vein, and his stance is that – regardless of the expectations or preferences of others – the truth of a depiction should be paramount. He recalls an inmate at Wandsworth prison during an author visit imploring him: “Please don’t stop writing about us” – “a vow I’ve kept ever since”.
“Artists of colour consistently find our manner of thinking and feeling assailed and denied by how others imagine us, or what they need our art to do for them,” he writes, and stresses the importance of the work of Black artists being reviewed by critics who have an understanding of “where our cultural expressions stem from, who we are”. Such insights appear throughout the book, always measured yet quietly angry, embodying a kind of rallying, rescuing call for cultural agency that bypasses gatekeepers. “The challenge is to see ourselves as wholly human … to manage our own depictions.”
The collection is divided into four sections, spanning an impressive range of literary and cultural criticism: there is an essay of appreciation for Percival Everett, whom Newland relates to for his espousal of experimentation in the face of racial reductionism (“Everett was a writer ignored by the industry because he was not considered Black enough. I’m an author who considers himself ignored by the industry because my work is too Black”); another on the British rapper and producer Roots Manuva, in which Newland proves himself a fine music critic; and a piece in which he admonishes the frequent failure to include writers of colour in the discourse around working-class literature, despite a Black British working class having existed since the 16th century. The essays are consistently, rigorously informative, borne from a bone-deep awareness of Black arts and culture, be it the connection between dub and science fiction, the difference between Afrofuturism and African futurism, or electro’s obsession with outer space. It’s also satisfying to read about the craft and trials of writing, though Newland always relates these with a sense of devotion and positivity.
At a time when the arts are under attack, and when political progressiveness has been demonised by the right as “wokeism”, this collection feels much needed. It’s interesting to note that between the publishing of Owusu’s Storms of the Heart and Newland’s The Art of Opposition, the word “black” has been decapitalised and recapitalised, depoliticised and repoliticised, according to the traumatising undulations of the struggle for lasting racial equality. Bold, eloquent and passionate, Newland does not shy away from the role of the artist as a force for change and antagonism. “Whenever hate-inspired mainstream culture grows, countercultures quite often take their rightful place to become sites of opposition.” This is a work of substance and integrity that will rank among his best.
• Diana Evans is the author of the essay collection I Want to Talk to You: And Other Conversations, and the novels A House for Alice, Ordinary People and 26a. The Art of Opposition: On Hope, Resilience & Creative Expression Beyond the Mainstream by Courttia Newland is published by Faber (£16.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
