“Only You” in a Girl from Zanzibar: The 1980s, Neoliberalism, and the Soundtrack of Protest

The 1980s: Thatcherism, neoliberalism, privatization, and union strikes. If these are the British legacy of that period, its soundtrack is synthpop. For this presentation, R. Benedito Ferrão, the 2026-2027 CUNY Thomas Tam Visiting Professor, “listens” to a pivotal scene in Roger King’s continent-spanning novel A Girl from Zanzibar (2001), hearing in it Yazoo’s “Only You” (1982). It is the score to the fraught nature of infrastructural changes brought on by the Thatcher regime, manifested in the dichotomy of luxury homes built in the wake of the privatization of government properties. This is precisely how King’s Goan-Arab protagonist, Marcella D’Souza, achieves her immigrant dreams, only to have them dashed with the discovery that she is an undocumented migrant from a former colony. Employing an intermedial approach between literature and music, Professor Ferrão also relies on the Flying Pickets’ cover of “Only You” (1983/84), an acapella version linked to political theatre and improvisational strategy around mining strikes. In thus employing a sonic history, Professor Ferrão contends that when heard alongside King’s novel, “Only You” lyrically and historically signals infrastructural change in the 1980s while striking a note of resistance.

Talk will be followed by a reception.