Overview

The Multicultural Midlands is a unique, interdisciplinary study of the literature, music and food that shape the region's irrepressible, though often overlooked, cultural identity. It is the first of its kind to give serious critical attention to a part of the world which is frequently ignored by readers, critics and the culture industries. TMM makes a claim for the importance of the Midlands and evidences this with nuanced close reading of a multitude of diverse texts spanning so-called 'high' to 'low' culture; from the Black Country's 'Desi Pubs', to Leicester's 'McIndians' Peri Peri ('you've tried the cowboys, now try the Indians!'); Handsworth's reggae roots to Adrian Mole's diaries. This book shifts the focus of writing about postcolonial and post-war Britain towards the regional. London has long hosted dominant creative narratives, while the Midlands is caught in the middle of a critical landscape that reinforces the reductive notion of a North-South divide. This book opens up the map to new ways of reading texts. Informed by original interviews, archival and socio-historic sources, this is the first major study to position the Midlands at the forefront of debates emanating from multiculturalism, devolution and literary economy.