When Courttia Newland published his first novel The Scholar aged 23, he immediately captivated the media as one of the few black British writers who accurately portrayed teenage life in London’s inner cities. The Scholar quickly became a best-seller and is currently being made into a film by Courttia’s own production company Cofe.

His second novel Society Within, set on the same fictional Greenside Estate in West London, was published in 2002. Courttia’s third book Snakeskin, is set in the same world, but is a detective novel, which follows the quest to find the killer of a Labour MP’s daughter

Courttia has contributed to many short story anthologies including Disco 2000, Afrobeat and the Time Out Book of London Short Stories. Along with Kadija George, he edited IC3, a collection of stories and poetry reflecting several generations of British black writing. An acclaimed playwright, his plays include The Far Side, about the murder of a young black man by a white youth, and Mother's Day, premiered at the Lyric Studio Hammersmith in autumn 2002 and most recently, B is for Black.

Courttia is writer in residence at the London College of Communication, and runs a weekly creative writer’s workshop in Shepherd’s Bush Library, West London.

INTERVIEW COURTTIA NEWLAND

COURTTIA NEWLAND Dzifa Benson talks to acclaimed writer Courttia Newland, about his roots, inspiration and writing novels, and what it means to be a black British writer.

Dzifa Benson: Do you think of yourself as a Caribbean writer?

Courttia Newland: I was born in Hammersmith and have been to the West Indies twice, both times to Christchurch, Barbados where my mom is from, so I don’t really feel Caribbean. I’ve never been to where my dad’s from 'Kingston', Jamaica. Up until I was in my early twenties my influences were very much Caribbean.

When my book, The Scholar came out and I started to travel, my influences started to change to more world influences. I went to places like Thailand, to the south, the islands, and thought, hold on a sec it looks exactly the same as in Barbados. Everything looked the same, it tasted the same, it felt the same. The sea’s the same. I’m standing in the sea and there’s flying fish.

DB: How did the Caribbean influence in your early life take form?
CN: Well, I considered myself West Indian up until I went to the West Indies.

DB: Why was that?

CN: Because that is what you’re always told. Everybody around saying they are West Indian. We were never termed as Black British by other people. In those boxes you had to tick there was no Black British, just Afro-Caribbean so I felt that I was Afro-Caribbean. But when I went to Barbados all the Bajans were calling me English boy. That’s when I realised, if they are not going to say I’m West Indian then I can’t be West Indian. Then when I came back I got strong on the Black British thing, which led to me writing my first book.

DB: Were there any West Indian writers who influenced your work?

CN: Obviously I was more into British stuff, but there were many West Indian writers whose work I admired - George Lamming, Sam Selvon, Earl Lovelace, Linton Kwesi Johnson of course. In my early years there was a dub poet, Michael Smith, who was based in Jamaica and who eventually got stoned to death. On the music side of things, I used to listen to Peter Tosh and lots of reggae artists because my mom was a Studio One freak and my dad was into Bunny Wailer.

DB: You started out as a musician and at the time, your influences leaned more towards hip hop. How did that translate into wanting to write books?

CN: I wanted to translate the hip hop into writing a book just because I wasn’t making any money from music –

DB: (Laughing unbelievingly) And you thought you could make more money from writing books?

CN: I know, not the smartest move I’ve made financially but I really thought the time was right and I felt that I could do it. Particularly, when Yardie by Victor Headley came out and everybody was going mad about it. Yardie was the beginning of the whole black British literature thing and it proved that books do sell to black British people and that we are reading even if it wasn’t the most politically correct book.

However, in its representation of Britain, especially London, it wasn’t on point at all. Especially when it was portraying black British youth – they talked wrong, they acted wrong. You could tell an older guy had written it. I wanted to do the insider’s view – I was about 19 when Yardie came out and I knew that I would be able to write from a 17 year old’s point of view more realistically. I wanted to put together a story that would show what it was like growing up at that time in Shepherd’s Bush and Ladbroke Grove.

page 1-2-3