The Art of Dissent by Courtia Newland – Insightful articles on culture and creativity | Articles

IIn 1988, the late Ghanaian writer and director Kwesi Owusu edited Storms of the Heart: An Anthology of Black Arts and Culture, a collection of writings and photographs by black artists in Britain, including Ben Okri on Shakespeare, Shobana Jeyasinghe on Indian dance theatre, Jacob Ross on the language of decolonization, an interview with Ntozake Shange, and early essays by the artist Sonia Boyce. Its aim was to document the progress of black diaspora arts in post-war Britain, to give voice to the creative and political concerns of practitioners and, most importantly, to push against the routine isolation and marginalization of their work. As a young writer aware of these facts, this was a great source of inspiration for me.

Courtia Newland’s collection of essays The Art of Dissent is entirely his own work, but it has a similar impact, primarily as providing a space for black or “other” creatives to feel supported and understood in their endeavors, and as a resistance to mainstream pressures. Newland, a novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, is no stranger to these pressures, his work sometimes subject to the disdain of an industry that expects writers to serve commercial imperatives. In these broad, fierce, and lucid essays, he draws on his considerable experience and cultural knowledge to emphasize “the larger 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 bold brand of “urban” fantasy has been better received in the publishing world than the African experimental science fiction he was burning to write (a recent example of which is his 2021 novel A River Called Time), and he constantly finds himself working in opposition to what the mainstream demands. In his essay “The Invisible Object/The Observed Subject,” he reflects on criticisms of the hit television drama Top Boy – which amounted to a “roadman drama” or “shock porn,” and played into negative stereotypes about black people. This was also a complaint about his work in this context, his position being that – regardless of the expectations or preferences of others – the truth of photography should be of paramount importance. He recalls an inmate at Wandsworth Prison visiting an author pleading with him: “Please don’t stop writing about us” – “a vow you have kept ever since.”

“Artists of color constantly find the way we think and feel attacked and denied by how others imagine us, or what they need our art to do.” For them“He writes, stressing the importance of reviewing the work of black artists by critics who have an understanding of ‘where our cultural expressions come from, and who we are.’ Such visions appear throughout the book, always measured but quietly angry, and embodying a kind of rallying-and-rescue call for cultural agency that transcends the gatekeepers. ‘The challenge is to see ourselves as fully human… to manage our own depiction.’”

The collection is divided into four sections, covering an impressive range of literary and cultural criticism: there is an essay tribute to Percival Everett, whom Newland speaks of for embracing experimentation in the face of racial reductionism (“Everett was a writer ignored by the industry because he was not black enough. I am an author who considers himself ignored by the industry because my work is too black”); another about British rapper and producer Roots Manuva, in which Newland has proven himself as a fine music critic; and an essay in which he warns against the repeated failure to include writers of color in the discourse on working-class literature, despite the existence of a black British working class since the sixteenth century. The articles are coherent and informative, drawing from a deep awareness of black arts and culture, whether it’s the relationship between dub and science fiction, the difference between afrofuturism and afrofuturism, or Electro’s obsession with outer space. It’s also fun to read about the craft and experiences of writing, although Newland always associates it with a sense of dedication and positivity.

At a time when the arts are under attack, and when political progress is demonized by the right as “awakening,” this group feels sorely needed. It is interesting to note that in the period between the publication of Owusu’s Storms of the Heart and Newland’s The Art of Dissent, the letter “black” was canceled and recapitalized, depoliticized and repoliticized, according to the painful ripples of the struggle for lasting racial equality. Bold, eloquent and passionate, Newland does not shy away from the artist’s role as a force for change and hostility. “As the hate-inspired mainstream culture grows, countercultures often take their place by becoming sites of dissent.” This is a substantive and honest work that will rank among his best.