In 21st-century Britain, writers of colour are reshaping how we see culture, history, and public life. Charlotte Williams’s Sugar and Slate explores mixed-heritage identity and Welshness, while Sathnam Sangera’s Empireland traces how imperialism has shaped modern Britain. Barbara Fletchman-Smith's profound insights examine the psychological afterlives of slavery, while Hakim Adi transforms our understanding of African and Caribbean contributions to British history.
Food and wellness, however, remain underrepresented fields. Caroline Shola Arewa broke new ground at the turn of the century by being the first Black Briton writing about spirituality to be published by mainstream publishers in the UK; her writing reclaims holistic health practices long rooted in Global Majority traditions, challenging their erasure from mainstream wellness. Meanwhile, Longthroat Memoirs (2016) by Yemisi Aribisala puts Nigerian cooking front and centre in the realm of food writing, proudly celebrating West African flavours as living archives of cultural memory.
Across the genres – history, food, wellness and memoir to name but a few – contemporary British writers of colour connect the personal with the political, showing how culture itself can be a site of knowledge, care and transformation in a Britain still grappling with its colonial inheritance.