Fiction Non Fiction - Volume 1

‘Fiction Non Fiction’ is a reader series edited by Bruno Zhu, pairing literary criticism with the material histories of labour, gender, and race. Each volume examines how liberal institutions have shaped identity politics through fiction and theory. Volume 1, published alongside Zhu’s License to Live at Chisenhale Gallery, explores space across colonial and postcolonial contexts – from Martinique and Algeria to Jamaican plantations and 1970s Lisbon – revealing how colonial legacies sustain extractive systems today. With contributions from Brenna Bhandar, Alberto Toscano, Celia Britton, Muriam Haleh Davis, Silvia Federici, Paul Gilroy, Lisa Lowe, Luís Madureira, and Sylvia Wynter, the book investigates racially coded spaces and their role in structuring bodies, ideas, and citizenship in service of empire.