WRITING IN PRACTICE VOL 9

ABSTRACT

Despite nearly four centuries of publication, Black British writing is only beginning to be recognised as an established body of work in the UK. In such a context characterised by sustained suppression of writing as explored in the recent report, Writing the Future: Black and Asian Writers and Publishers in the UK Market Place (2015), how might a libretto be written and developed by a Black British woman writer who must also earn a living lecturing part-time? The libretto in question is Imoinda, or She Who Will Lose Her Name, which focuses squarely on Atlantic slavery through a radical rewriting of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688). I argue that Imoinda emerges from precarious beginnings shaped by racialised and gendered conditions, and I question how a Black British woman writer might undertake and sustain such a task? I briefly sketch how Black British Writing, as a body of "Outsiders" writing, suppressed since it first revealed itself in the eighteenth century, remains stifled today. Turning to key institutions - publishers, agents, and the university - that have consistently disregarded the significance of the body of writing, I address the precarity that so often leads to potential Black writers under-performing or abandoning their writing practice, as I trace the long writing journey, lasting over a decade, to bring Imoinda from page to performance. 

KEYWORDS

Imoinda, Atlantic slavery, Outsiders, libretto, Oroonoko, Black British writing, Aphra Behn, UK Arts market, art of writing, hostile Britain, suppression of writing, transnational

 HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE

Anim-Addo, Joan (2023) Writing in Practice volume 9 A View From The Outside Looking In: Writing The Libretto Imoinda, Or She Who Will Lose Her Name, Writing in Practice. 9. 7-19. DOI: 10.62959-WIP-09-2023-02