Romance for change: Contemporary Black British, Muslim British, and Asian British love stories

The goal, in the end, is to impress upon those who most need it that Black Love matters.That Black people have full, meaningful lives, and that, in a world that hasn't often allowed it to us, Happily Ever After is ours to grab hold of, to wear against our hearts.It's the least we deserve.(Pryde, 2022: xix) 'Serious' literature is not the only mode through which one can develop their thoughts and ideas.(Malik, interview for this symposium)The two quotations included here neatly illustrate the paired interests of this symposium.Pryde (2022), in a quote taken from her edited collection Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happily Ever Afters, powerfully affirms the value and legitimacy of black love.This is a declaration of a much needed emotional and representational justice within a publishing industry that has systematically failed to acknowledge that minoritized people are entitled to representation and romantic and emotional fulfilment.The second quotation, from our interview with British Muslim author of romantic fiction, Ayisha Malik, acknowledges the pervasive misunderstanding that genre fiction -and particularly romantic fiction -is "unserious" and has nothing meaningful to say.The central claim of this symposium is that romantic