“A bit of the other”: Black edibility and white consumption in Andrea Levy’s Small Island

Abstract

This article examines depictions of interracial violence in Andrea Levy’s Small Island to argue that the novel challenges the ways that interraciality is mobilized as a symbol of progress. By examining tropes of black edibility and white consumption, this article situates the duality of attraction and repulsion white characters feel for black characters within libidinal economies of racialized desire and power. Through an analysis of main protagonist Queenie’s anti-blackness towards her black friends, lovers, and child, this article argues that love and affection themselves are implicated within racialized economies of power and an anti-black desirability politics that seeks to possess and destroy black people.