Conclusion

The Lonely Londoners details numerous examples of racial prejudice, a disturbing aspect of British society throughout the post-war period. Just two years after The Lonely Londoners first appeared, racial tensions erupted into violence in both Notting Hill in London, and Nottingham. While such violent manifestations of racial tensions have been relatively rare, immigrant communities have continued to face persecution in varying degrees; the rise of far-right racist parties such as the National Front in the 1970s and the British National Party in the early twenty-first century have fuelled racial discontent, and criminal cases such as the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 have revealed the extent of racist attitudes in major British institutions such as the Metropolitan Police Force. Black British writers since Selvon have continued to explore migrant experience against this background, and over the same period black British literature has asserted itself in a more central position in relation to the established canon.