Race Riots: Comedy And Ethnicity in Modern British Fiction [Hardcover]

Michael L. Ross (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2006

From "Black Mischief" to "The Buddha of Suburbia", twentieth-century British fiction is rife with racial humour. Challenging the common reluctance to take such comedy seriously, Michael Ross shows how humour directed at ethnic "others" exposes deep-seated national attitudes. "Race Riots" explores the development and implications of racial comedy in British literature from the early twentieth century to the present. Ross examines racial humour as a manifestation of post-colonialism and questions contemporary critiques of "political correctness." Looking at cartoons from pre-World War II issues of Punch, Ross shows how disdain for non-Europeans plays a key role in period British humour and links this idea to the racial humour in the work of Evelyn Waugh and Joyce Cary. He also demonstrates how these assumptions are later turned on their heads by writers such as Salmon Rushdie. "Race Riots" documents the growing self-consciousness in British comic fiction about the moral status of humour itself, a tendency that aligns recent writers like Hanif Kureishi, Zadie Smith, and Angela Levy with broader postmodernist trends.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael L. Ross is emeritus professor, English and cultural studies, McMaster University, and the author of Storied Cities: Literary Imaginings of Florence, Venice, and Rome.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 309 pages
• Publisher: Mcgill Queens Univ Pr (August 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0773531092
• ISBN-13: 978-0773531093
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,230,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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