"Small Island" by Andrea Levy. [review]

Abstract

The social fabric of mid-twentieth century London suffered many assaults, and not all came from German bombers. Some came, outrageously, from their ‘ungrateful’ colonies.

"Small Island" concerns two couples, one Jamaican and one English, whose lives intersect during and after the second world war. The focus of the novel is on the relations between white and black at time when xenophobia was seen as an Englishman’s right – ‘darkies’ were all very well in their ‘own’ countries but why did they have to invade England and bring down the neighbourhood?