Caryl Phillips and Timothy Mo, Authors with Migration Background

Caryl Phillips and Timothy Mo, Authors with Migration Background

Phillips began publishing novels in Britain and his early books such as The Final Passage and A State of Independence are set in the Caribbean. In his writing, he depicts aspects of his own history, namely his life as a West Indian in Britain, and people “who have been displaced and who lack a comforting or stabilizing history or tradition” (154-55). His work explores what it means to be black and English or a black European and rejects exclusive notions of British identity. As a British writer, he is placed in “a transnational, cosmopolitan, postcolonial context that expands traditional notions of Britishness” (Yelin). Being an author with migration background, Phillips claims that Caribbean people are not afraid of migration, seeing that they are of diverse ancestry and forever moving between ‘homes’, and that this condition contributes to creating a narrative.

The migration of the Caribbean artist is a special kind of migration. Politically, culturally and linguistically, the Caribbean artist is better prepared for migration than most. Wherever one happens to be in the Caribbean, at least two or more continents and cultures have already provided the bedrock upon which one’s identity has been forged. It is a birthright that embraces Europe, Africa and Asia. [...] Migration is not a word to be feared, for Caribbean people are forever moving between versions of ‘home’, spurred on by [their mixed origin]. This migratory condition, and the subsequent sense of displacement, can be a gift to a creative mind (New World 131).

In the interview with C. Rosalind Bell, he emphasizes the initial dilemma of being a black immigrant in Britain and his desire to be familiar with Caribbean culture. His parents, similarly as other West Indian immigrants raising their children in England, tried not to remind him of the place where they came from so as not to confuse him, they wanted him to become the part of the new society: “My parents didn’t talk about it, and it wasn’t something that was taught in school. We weren’t reminded that we were West Indian; we were reminded that we were black” (578). Phillips’s personal experience is thus of much importance for his novel The Final Passage which illustrates the exodus of black West Indians from their impoverished islands to the new opportunities in England.

Timothy Mo was born in 1950 in Hong Kong; his mother, an Englishwoman, and father, a Cantonese local solicitor, were divorced soon afterward. He was raised and educated in Hong Kong until the age of ten, in 1960 he and his mother moved to England. Mo studied history at Oxford University and later took M.A. courses in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. After graduation, he worked as a reviewer and a part-time journalist for various newspapers and magazines in London, also fought as a bantamweight boxer and wrote for Boxing News. Currently Mo lives in London, where he avoids public attention, and visits Hong Kong occasionally (Zhang).

Manferlotti characterizes Mo as an author belonging to ‘writers from elsewhere,’ who have chosen English language as the vehicle of their expression although they were not born into it, English was not their native language (189). He further implies that regardless of their social class and profession, the existence of immigrants is marked by an endless fluctuation between two polarities, two histories. Such a duality can give origin to authors as to divided selves and the relationship between two cultures forms the basis and the subject-matter of their art (190). Growing up in Hong Kong, Mo has experienced a colonial history and is able to speak Chinese, but his relationship with his homeland is not direct and he recognizes the scholarly origin of his knowledge about China, which he incorporated into Sour Sweet. The novel tells the story of a Chinese family that migrates from Hong Kong to the UK, works hard and succeeds in being integrated into British society (192-93).

Suprajitno relates to an interview in which Mo has claimed that his “immigration to Britain during [his childhood years] facilitated [his] early transition and adaptation to British culture, enabling [him] to write ‘mainstream English novels’” (77). Due to his migrant background, Mo is familiar with more than one culture (78) and regards himself as a writer whose work addresses universal issues and concerns (Zhang). Akilli argues that thanks to his cultural and migration background, Timothy Mo was able to depict the clash of Chinese and British cultures realistically enough in his novel Sour Sweet.

The sense of duality invoked by the title of Sour Sweet [...] is also a reproduction of his own life experiences. Apart from the bicultural parentage that he has, which makes both the Chinese and the English cultures accessible for him, his experiences as an immigrant writer living in London has also been influential in shaping his writing career (“Culture”).

Mo is fascinated by the clash of Western and Eastern civilizations and as a writer of dual cultural heritage, he creates fictional worlds “in which individuals find themselves straddling two cultures while belonging to neither” (Zhang).

All in all, while Phillips is an English speaking writer of Caribbean origin who was looking for his cultural identity, Mo is an Anglochinese writer who came to terms with his dual cultural heritage. Accordingly, their personal experience is reflected in their works.