“Everything She Knew": Race, Nation, Language, and Identity in Philip Pullman’s The Broken Bridge

Abstract

A decade before his international acclaim for the His Dark Materials fantasy series, Pullman authored The Broken Bridge, a coming-of-age tale featuring Ginny, an Afro-British teenaged girl living in postmodern coastal Wales. The Broken Bridge delves into dilemmas of racial identity, ideologies of language and location, and aspects of non-Western religion that are not often touched upon in young adult literature. Pullman’s deft characterization prevents Ginny from becoming a caricature; instead, he presents the story of a very real sixteen-year-old girl with resentments, fears, and doubts. Ultimately, The Broken Bridge serves as a metaphor for the irreconcilability between an imagined Blackness that is authentic, unitary, and atemporal, and Ginny’s lived reality of a fragmented Blackness that has been irrevocably created by and reified through personal and collective cultural trauma and loss.