Sarah NJun 11, 2025
A novel that follows a group of black, primarily West Indian immigrants as they attempt to build new lives for themselves in postwar London. In dramatizing the tension between the immigrants' fantasies and expectations of a city 'paved with gold,' and London's cold, gloomy, often hostile reality, the author touches upon themes of alienation and homesickness, as well as resistance and comic defiance. (Adapted from the Bartlett, UCL Faculty of the Built Environment, January 2020)