City of Spades

London has been described as the ‘true hero’ of City of Spades and its author, Colin MacInnes, certainly takes us on a whirlwind tour of the city. His London, however, would have been unfamiliar to many at the time, for this novel – published in 1957 and the first of what’s often described as MacInnes’s London Trilogy – focuses on an emergent black culture. It brings vividly to life the pubs and dance halls that many contemporary readers would have considered firmly out of bounds, offering an alternate mapping of this great city.