The Nowhere Man
By Kamala Markandaya
(Small Axes,an imprint of HopeRod, £10.99)

Described as “A book for our times written half a century ago,” this is a remarkable story that resonates only too clearly in the hostile climate of contemporary Britain.

This is an engaging — albeit thoroughly disturbing — read for the holiday season.

First published in 1972, this is a novel about, an Indian who came “here because we were there,” as post-colonial writers have summarised the migrations that resulted from British colonialism.

Fleeing his native country, following his involvement in pre-war struggles for independence, Srinivas settles in south London.

Despite the racial prejudice that he encounters, he manages to establish a small business, supporting his wife and two sons.

Each responds to the challenges of growing up and living in Britain in their own way. But they are all — more or less successfully — coping, thereby re-enforcing Srinivas’s view of Britain as an essentially decent and tolerant society.

Following the deaths of his wife and one of his sons (killed during the Blitz), Srinivas’s life takes a sadder turn.

But even so, he manages to find ways of coping again subsequently, with comfort and support from an English woman with whom he builds a mutually caring relationship.   

This is so far from representing a caricature of British attitudes to newcomers at this period, illustrating the diversity of responses on both sides.

This is not a situation that could be expected to last, however.

Srinivas is living through a ceasefire, rather than a cessation of hostilities, more generally.

By the end of the 1960s, Britain is experiencing more overtly vitriolic forms of racism, in the wake of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech.

Racist violence erupts, even in this supposedly quiet suburb.

The novel was published in 1972, written by an Indian writer who came to England soon after independence, in 1948.

She has an outsider’s grasp of the nuances of British responses to newcomers, and their varying responses to Britain, together with an immediacy in her understanding of the colonial background.

This brings her novel home to contemporary readers with a jolt (at least that was my experience, as I thought about the novel’s current resonances).

There are novels whose relevance increases rather than decreases, over time, novels to be rediscovered in subsequent periods.

Founded in 2010, HopeRoad’s mission has been to promote new literary voices from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Small Axes (the title taken from the Bob Marley song of the same name) adds to this aspect of HopeRoad’s mission by reissuing post-colonial classics that helped to shape cultural shifts at the time of their first publication.  

Morning Star readers should find much reading material of interest here, in Small Axe’s growing list.