Warning signs: Postcolonial writing and the apprehension of Brexit

This article considers how postcolonial fiction anticipated, apprehended, and critically explored the political and cultural milieu which facilitated the outcome of the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum. In suggesting that “Brexit Literature” existed before Brexit was formally pursued, it understands Brexit as driving an English nationalism that unnervingly appropriates the history of the British Empire and World War II. It uncovers the representation of these manoeuvres in a number of key texts. Caryl Phillips’s A Distant Shore both logs and challenges the malevolent imagining of newcomers that has deep roots in notions of war and empire. Zadie Smith’s NW represents post-crash austerity as proleptically exposing the complex politics of race and class which fuelled the pro-Brexit populism that lies latent in the novel. Ultimately, the article calls for a post-Brexit postcolonialism that harnesses the power of critical thought to continue the long-standing contestation of the prevailing political orthodoxy.