Description
After the death of her mother causes a drastic change in fortune, Mila is forced to live in a notoriously bad council estate at the other end of town. Colloquially called The Tower, for Silas, it has been an inexplicable source of tragedy and pain in his young life. After a stint at juvie, he returns with a renewed motivation to get his life on track. But progress is not always linear and when their lives collide, tragedy cuts their love story short. Initially conceptualised as a critique of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, The Tower evolved into a short story that seeks to explore the modern Black-British experience holistically. The development was inspired by a critical examination of human rights discourse relative to radical discussions by black activists, which encouraged me to analyse how institutional forces impact the quality of life for Black-British people. The interpolation of poetry was inspired by the current poetic renaissance on social media that has been led by black authors like Nayyirah Waheed and Ysra Daley-Ward. While this is an unprecedented feat, I chose to tell this story because I believe the contemporary Black-British experience remains underrepresented in literature.
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