A New World Order: Selected Essays

This text ranges widely across the Atlantic World that Caryl Phillips has charted in his novels and non-fiction books since 1980. Phillips begins by introducing the reader to books by such authors as James Baldwin, Joseph Conrad and Richard Wright. He then goes on to reflect on the work of such seminal figures as Derek Walcott, V.S. Naipaul and Nadime Gordimer. This collection of essays is not, however, limited to the literary. The author goes in search of Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Marvin Gaye. He writes about the moment when St Kitts, the small island of his birth, became independent and talks about the role and responsibility of being a writer born into a post-colonial world who lives on both sides of the Atlantic. In the final section of the book, the author turns the spotlight on Britain and examines the country that formed and educated him, speculating about his parents migration to Britain in the late 1950s, the continued legacy of racism, his own helpless loyalty to Leeds United, and his anxieties at feeling as though he is both of, and not of, Britain.

The short Leeds United chapter is Leeds United, Life and Me. From page 301:

Leeds United reminds me of my father.  Leeds United reminds me of my best friend, John.  Leeds United reminds me of the moment my mother caught me crying as a teenager because in 1972 Leeds had lost the game that would have given them the double. Leeds United reminds me of who I am. All together now, ‘We are Leeds, We are Leeds, We are Leeds.’ Somewhere, thirty-five years ago, a small black boy in the company of his white teenage babysitter stood on the terraces at Elland Road for the first time. And I say back to that child today, ‘And you will always be Leeds, for they are the mirror in which you will see reflected the complexity that is your life.”

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