In Praise of Counterpublics

2019 was a landmark year for Wasafiri. Celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary of our founding, and the tenth anniversary of our New Writing Prize, we ran a series of events exploring the power of writing to expand and challenge old notions of nationhood, belonging and citizenship — a series that peaked with two festivals: ‘Reimagining Britain’, held at Queen Mary, University of London on 8 November; and ‘An Island Full of Voices: Writing Britain Now’, held at the British Library on 9 November. We also released two special publications in 2019: our landmark hundredth issue, ‘An Island Full of Voices’, and a commemorative book, Brave New Words, created in collaboration with Myriad Editions. We brought together contributors from the long history of Wasafiri across these activities, uniting authors who have been friends, supporters and advocates of the magazine for many years, like Caryl Phillips, Fred D’Aguiar and (the first black woman to win the Booker Prize) Bernardine Evaristo, and placing them – on the page and on the stage – alongside newer members of the Wasafiri family like Bidisha, Nikesh Shukla and our 2019 Writer-in-Residence Nick Makoha.

It was a busy year — both a time of sometimes frenetic activity and also a time to take stock. Political turmoil roiled through the world with right-wing chauvinism ascendant and serially calling into question what, exactly, terms like ‘democracy’ and ‘the people’ actually meant. As we spoke with authors and invited them to comment on the societal ruptures bursting open across the globe, Wasafiri as an organisation was going through its own period of potentially disruptive change. As long-time readers will know, our Founder, Editor-in-Chief, the head and heart behind Wasafiri since its birth, Susheila Nasta, slowly stepped away from the day-to-day operation of the magazine, and ‘passed the torch’ to a new team (see Nasta, ‘Passing’ 1). In a year packed with milestones, and convulsed by social tremors, Wasafiri was necessarily forced to reassess itself.

Briefly we wondered if the magazine should continue. The world had changed since our birthday in 1984. Some of the problems Wasafiri was established to fight looked like they were being addressed. In 2019 it was possible, if you squinted, to feel that authors of colour had finally broken through in Britain, despite the rise of reactionary politics. Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker Prize win. British Vogue taken over by Meghan Markle and featuring poets Malika Booker and Theresa Lola literally alongside royalty. Mary Jean Chan becoming the first woman of colour to join the ranks of the Faber poets. A Guardian list of the best ‘BAME’ writers, curated by the Black British Makar of Scotland, Jackie Kay. It was possible, too, with eyes wide, to feel like a new generation of writers, platforms and publications had sprung up to carry forward, and perhaps leave behind, the work of Wasafiri and its contemporaries — not least gal-dem, the podcasts Stance and Mostly Lit, and zines like Khidr Collective.

And yet. Long internal discussions about what Wasafiri was established to do, and whether or not it was necessary to continue, triggered new thoughts about what the publication – now organisation – can bring to the future. Wasafiri has, since its inception, been both a hub and a testing ground. More than anything else, it has sought to connect those authors and readers from across the world seeking both new voices and new ways of understanding literature, the arts and the contexts they’re produced within. It has been, at times, a location of heated debate; it has also, and often, functioned as an alternative space where new ideas could safely bloom and new connections thread within and across communities.

Only a month before her Booker Prize win, Bernardine Evaristo warned in her essay ‘What a Time to Be a (Black) (British) (Womxn) Writer’, published in Brave New Words, that we should be wary of the apparent changes in a British publishing industry that now seems to see the writing of black and Asian authors as a new niche, and runs the risk of, while inserting works into freshly excavated marketing spaces, constraining the types of representations that those now granted some access to the mainstream can create (91–94, 102–4). Have things progressed? Yes. It would be hard to argue that the publishing landscape is similar to what it was in 1984. Among other things a proliferation of small presses in Britain and initiatives like the Good Agency are bringing new voices, forms and authors to public attention — but there’s still a great deal of distance yet to travel.

The more we spoke about Wasafiri’s future, the more it became clear that our role as a hub that links readers and authors across national boundaries still mattered; that sustaining a space where the ‘creative’ and ‘critical’ meet, interact and grow (a space that also questions that neat creative/crit binary) is still important; and that, through our history, our archive and our events, acting as a counterpublic that connects newer authors and initiatives to their forebears to help cement the transformations in literary culture that are currently taking place is pressing and necessary.¹ Wasafiri is now one of many organisations – a member of multiple, global and intersecting counterpublics – that are frustrated with the limitations of the mainstream, that want to see an arts landscape truly reflective of the world we live within. And that’s only to the good.

So welcome to Wasafiri 101, the first issue of 2020. Long-time readers will see some external changes to the magazine: we’re in the midst of experimenting with a new format to increase both readability and portability (and would love to hear from you about what works and what doesn’t as the experimentation continues over the next few months (we’re [email protected])). Design changes aside, this issue contains the same mix of global voices regular readers have come to expect, with short fiction set in Nigeria and Trinidad, and articles on Pakistani artist Naiza Khan (in Venice), and the legacies of Andrea Levy and New Beacon Books. Somak Ghoshal, of India’s Mint magazine, reflects on Brexit and the artwork created in its wake in our lead feature, and, in a hybrid piece of life writing, Vedita Cowaloosur considers the history of indenture in Mauritius and its echoes and silences in the contemporary tourism industry. As usual, the issue also features interviews with authors pushing the boundaries of literary form – Shankari Chandran, Chigozie Obioma and Namwali Serpell – as well as reviews — our newly re-designed reviews section opening with an essay on three books that touch on the Trump-fuelled ‘migrant crisis’ in the United States. Ahead this year, we have special issues on Japan and on post-conflict literatures, and a general issue with a special section, ‘Writing Whiteness’, all scheduled.

Many things have changed in Wasafiri and its world since its founding, and many things remain in the way before the open literary culture we’ve long sought – that we desperately need – comes into being. For new readers: I hope you enjoy what you find in these pages, return to us and potentially subscribe. For those who have long supported the magazine: the journey continues.

Notes

1 Also referenced in Alexa Hazel’s article in this issue, my usage of the term ‘counterpublic’ I take from Nancy Fraser’s 1990 article ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy’. Fraser defines ‘subaltern counterpublics’ as ‘parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs’ (67). It’s worth noting that Fraser conceives of subaltern counterpublics as ‘by definition not enclaves — which is not to deny that they are often involuntarily enclaved. … [T]o interact discursively as a member of a public – subaltern or otherwise – is to disseminate one’s discourse into ever widening arenas’ (67). That is, to be both ‘counter’ and ‘public’ these groups need to seek to communicate their ideas.