Natasha Brown burst on to the British literary scene in 2021 with her award-winning and critically acclaimed debut novel, Assembly. That slim but substantial work of autofiction articulated powerfully the experience of a young black woman dealing with the racism entrenched in Britain’s colonial legacy as she navigates her career in finance.
In her sophomore novel, Universality, Brown deploys her skilful satire to tackle rhetoric itself, examining with nuanced precision the relationship between language, truth and power. The first third of the novel is a fictional piece of long-form journalism that achieved viral status for its journalist, Hannah. The title of the…