In 2000, Courttia Newland and Kadija Sesay co-edited the landmark anthology IC3: The Penguin Anthology of New Black Writing in Britain.
To celebrate the anthology’s 20th birthday and reissue in 2021, Five Dials literary magazine invited some of its original contributors to reflect on the experience and examine what’s changed for Black British writers in the intervening years.
I was proud to be a contributor and to feature in this excellent magazine issue.
“Before the anthology, I had never actually heard of the police code IC3. It’s such a reductive way to describe an incredibly diverse community. This anthology helped reclaim and transform that in a way. So now when I hear IC3, I think of Black people coming together to tell powerful, funny, truthful stories in our own voices. We’ve always had that ability to turn something shitty into something amazing.”
Uju Asika