“Certainly forbidden” subjects: Race, migration, and the vanishing points of post-imperial British security

What is it about?

This article examines how contemporary British fiction conceals evidence of migration and racial anxiety in the postwar period. Focusing on Muriel Spark’s 1961 novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go, the article follows two nonwhite immigrant characters who appear briefly and then vanish into the texts, never to resurface. The article argues that the novels practice in narrative form the same racial policing developed during breakup of the British Empire and redeployed in the war on terror. Linking the novels to the racial histories of British immigration, biomedical advancement, and organ trafficking, the article reveals the narrative and historical foundations of the contemporary security state.

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Why is it important?

The article connects the histories of British imperialism and immigration to the War on Terror, thereby excavating the global nature of the contemporary security state. It also provides a model of locating buried, nearly invisible racial histories in literary texts.