Post Colonial Literatures

Essays in which the ethnic literatures of North America are added to the developing postcolonial canon The postcolonial literary canon remains comprised of privileged national and regional texts. The English-language literatures of Africa, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean clearly emerged from an earlier model of ‘Commonwealth literature’. Post-Colonial Literatures examines the development of this body of writing, and is the first such study to expand the paradigm to accommodate the literatures of the colonised peoples of North America. The authors engage with the major debates within existing postcolonial studies, addressing issues such as hybridity, subaltern voices, decolonisation, multiculturalism and border cultures. Subjects covered include Fred D’Aguiar, Merle Collins and Toni Morrison; Native Candian writing and US-Canadian literary relations; writings of the Autralian Aborignals; women writers in Zimbabwe; and the relationship between black and Hispanic discourses of America.

This collection of essays reflects the intensified debate world-wide in literary theories, especially since 1968, and the growth of post-colonial literatures in English, which together have prompted significant re-readings of cultural histories in Africa, India, the Caribbean, as well as in America and Europe. This collection of essays reflects the intensified debate world-wide in literary theories, especially since 1968, and the growth of post-colonial literatures in English, which together have prompted significant re-readings of cultural histories in Africa, India, the Caribbean, as well as in America and Europe. Post-Colonial Literatures scrutinises the work of four writers: Achebe, Ngugi, Desai and Walcott, and their attempts to find new languages and new narratives to engage with the complex histories of their 'homelands'.