Asian Britain: A Photographic History

South Asians have lived in Britain for centuries. From the first trade conducted between the two nations along the Silk Route to the adoption of Chicken Tikka Masala as a national dish, the ongoing mutual exchange of cultures continues to flourish today. Asian Britain vividly charts Britain’s process of coming to terms with the historic realities of its culturally diverse past and present.This extraordinary photographic history draws upon culture, film, music, the military, business, the suffragist movement and the different phases of historic settlement of Asian migrants from the subcontinent, the Caribbean and East Africa. Personalities from the arts, business, politics and sport appear alongside the pioneers – the first female law student at Oxford, the first Indian RAF pilots, the first Asian MP – and of equal significance are the experiences and history of the ordinary immigrants.Susheila Nasta MBE is editor-in-chief of the internationally distinguished literary magazine, Wasafiri. Currently Professor of Modern Literature at the Open University, she has published widely on the black and South Asian diasporas. Since 2007, Nasta has been Director of a major interdisciplinary research project on Asian Britain. She was shortlisted for the International Collaboration of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards 2013 for her project 'Beyond the Frame: Indian British Connections 1858-1950'. Focusing on public engagement and touring a facsimile exhibition in India and the UK, the project was led by Nasta with colleague, Dr Florian Stadtler on behalf of The Open University.Florian Stadtler was an Open University Research Fellow (2008-2013) on two AHRC-funded projects investigating the cultural, social and political history of Asian Britain. He has published on South Asian cinema, history and writing, including Fiction, Film and Indian Popular Cinema: Salman Rushdie's Novels and the Cinematic Imagination. He is Lecturer in Global Literature at the University of Exeter.In association with Getty Images and British Library.