Natasha Brown

Come of age in the credit crunch. Be civil in a hostile environment. Step out into a world of Go Home vans. Go to Oxbridge, get an education, start a career. Do all the right things. Buy a flat. Buy art. Buy a sort of happiness. But above all, keep your head down. Keep quiet. And keep going.


The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart?

Assembly

Sarah Kraus

dascha

Generations of sacrifice; hard work and harder living. So much suffered, so much forfeited, so much - for this opportunity. For my life. And I've tried, tried living up to it. But after years of struggling, fighting against the current, I'm ready to slow my arms. Stop kicking. Breathe the water in. I'm exhausted. Perhaps it's time to end this story.

Born here, parents born here, always lived here - still, never from here. Their culture becomes parody on my body.

How do we examine the legacy of colonisation when the basic facts of its construction are disputed in the minds of its beneficiaries? (...) How can we engage, discuss, even think through a post-colonial lens, when there's no shared base of knowledge? When even the simplest account of events - as preserved in the country's own archives - wobbles suspect as tin-foil-hat conspiracies in the minds of its educated citizens?

sina (she/her) 

She was a Home Counties, Kate-loving, Jaeger-shopping, Lean In-feminist who arranged animal-welfare fundraisers at the weekends and bought handmade earrings from Etsy.

I am not sure why I do anything, sometimes. Why do I inhale? Why do I apologize? Or say I'm fine, thanks. And you? Why do I stand back from the platform edge?

in the ostensible privacy of my own thoughts 

Assembly quotes

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