Postcolonial literature

Postcolonial literature (or Post-colonial literature, sometimes called New English literature(s)), is a body of literary writings that reacts to the discourse of colonization. Post-colonial literature often involves writings that deal with issues of de-colonization or the political and cultural independence of people formerly subjugated to colonial rule. It is also a literary critique to texts that carry racist or colonial undertones.^[1] Postcolonial literature, finally in its most recent form, also attempts to critique the contemporary postcolonial discourse that has been shaped over recent times. It attempts to assimilate this very emergence of postcolonialism and its literary expression itself.

Approach

Postcolonial literary critics re-examine classical literature with a particular focus on the social "discourse" that shaped it.Edward Said in his popular work Orientalism analyzes the writings of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire and Lautréamont, exploring how they were influenced, and how they helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority. Postcolonial fiction writers might interact with the traditional colonial discourse by attempting to modify or subvert it. An example of this is Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which was written as a pseudo-prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Here, a familiar story is re-told from the perspective of an oppressed minor character. Protagonists in post-colonial writings are often found to be struggling with questions of identity, experiencing the conflict of living between the old, native world and the invasive forces of hegemony from new, dominant cultures.In Wide Sargasso Sea, the protagonist is shown to be re-named and exploited in several ways.

The "anti-conquest narrative" recasts indigenous inhabitants of colonised countries as victims rather than foes of the colonisers.^[2] This depicts the colonised people in a more human light but risks absolving colonisers of responsibility for addressing the impacts of colonisation by assuming that native inhabitants were "doomed" to their fate.^[2]

Notable authors by region

This section needs to be expanded with JM Coetzee, Maryse Condé, Cyril Dabydeen, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Raywat Deonandan , Buchi Emecheta, Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, Bonny Hicks, Hanif Kureishi, Doris Lessing, Earl Lovelace, Gabriel García Márquez, Bharati Mukherjee, Barbara Kingsolver, VS Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, RK Narayan, Mahashweta Devi, EM Forster, Anita Desai, Bapsi Sidhwa, Wilbur Smith, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Yvonne Vera, Derek Walcott, Kath Walker, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Haim Sabato, Eleanor Dark, Bole Butake, Anne Tanyi-Tang, Bate Besong, Maxine Hong Kingston. Marcus Garvey, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Léon Damas.

Africa

Léopold Senghor conceived the idea of négritude, Homi K Bhabha, Hampaté Bâ, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958) made a significant mark in African literature. Ayi Kwei Armah in Two Thousand Seasons tried to establish an African perspective to their own history. In Britain, J. G. Farrell's novels Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip, written during the 1970s, are important texts dealing with the collapse of the British Empire.

The Americas

Isabel Allende from Chile contributes to Latin-American literature and occasionally writes in a style called magical realism or vivid story-telling, also used by Gabriel García Márquez, Juan Rulfo and Salman Rushdie. Poet and novelist Giannina Braschi from Puerto Rico directly addresses the colonial situation of Puerto Rico in "United States of Banana".

The author Jean Rhys made a significant contribution to postcolonial literature in her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, which describes a Creole woman whose British husband mistreats her based on his perceptions of her cultural heritage.

The Canadian writer Margaret Atwood is also a post-colonial writer who dealt with themes of identity-seeking through her Southern Ontario Gothic style of writing.

The Middle East

This section needs to be expanded

Asia

Postcolonial writings have been found among much of Indian literature. Meena Alexander is probably best known for lyrical memoirs that deal sensitively with struggles of women and disenfranchised groups. Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie has also contributed to the post-colonial literature. His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981) won the Booker Prize in 1981.

Philippine authors like F. Sionil José, Jose Dalisay, Jr., N. V. M. Gonzalez and Nick Joaquin write about the post-colonial (some say neo-colonial) situation in the Philippines.

Sri Lankan writers like Nihal De Silva or Carl Muller write about the post-colonial situation and the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, while Michael Ondaatje, international the most acclaimed author with Sri Lankan roots, adds the perspective of the diaspora.

Indian authors like Chaman Nahal, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai have brought the Indian post colonial Literature into the world.

Though written by American author David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly is one postcolonial work regarding the Western perception of the East in general, but specifically addresses the Western perspective on China and the French and American perspectives on Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

History: Events leading to Postcolonialism

Colonialism usually works through the use of brutal force employed by one country to exploit another community and obtain economic wealth. Colonialism most commonly was the abuse of native people. The post-colonial perspective emerged as a challenge to this tradition and legacy; it attempts to illegitimize the idea of establishing power through conquest. Selim Al Deen from Bangladesh has also written postcolonial drama.

Critic's Point of View

What qualifies as postcolonial literature is debatable. The term postcolonial literature has taken on many meanings. The four subjects include:

1. Social and cultural change or erosion:^[3] It seems that after independence is achieved, one main question arises; what is the new cultural identity?
2. Misuse of power and exploitation: Even though the large power ceases to control them as a colony, the settlers still seem to continue imposing power over the native.^[3] The main question here; who really is in power here, why, and how does an independence day really mean independence?
3. Colonial abandonment and alienation: This topic is generally brought up to examine individuals and not the ex-colony as a whole.^[3] The individuals tend to ask themselves; in this new country, where do I fit in and how do I make a living?
4. Use of English language literature: It may be asked if the target of post-colonial studies, i.e. the analysis of post-colonial literature and culture, can be reached neglecting literary works in the original languages of post-colonial nations.

Postcolonial literary critics

Edward Said is often considered to have been the seminal postcolonial critic. Further critics are Bill Ashcroft, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Homi K. Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Leela Gandhi, Gareth Griffiths, Abiola Irele, John McLeod, Gayatri Spivak, Hamid Dabashi, Helen Tiffin, Khal Torabully, and Robert Young

See also

• Colonialism
• Colonial cinema
• TSAR Publications
• Indian English literature
• Francophone literature
• Hungryalism
• Vernacular literature
• Migrant literature
• Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry
• Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
• A Journal of Pakistan Studies

References

1. ^ Hart & Goldie 1993, p. 155.
2. ^ ^{a b} Revie, Linda L. (2003). The Niagara Companion: Explorers, Artists and Writers at the Falls, from Discovery through the Twentieth Century. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. pp. 95. ISBN 0889204330. http://books.google.com/books?id=X8J3zgXVq_MC&dq=%22anti+conquest+narrative%22. 
3. ^ ^{a b c} Mansour, Wisam. "Post-colonialism", Lecture 5, April 14, 2008. Accessed April 14, 2008.

Rererences

• Hart, Jonathan; Goldie, Terrie (1993). "Post-colonial theory". In Makaryk, Irene Rima; Hutcheon, Linda; Perron, Paul. Encyclopedia of contemporary literary theory: approaches, scholars, terms. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-5914-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=CTJCiLG9AeoC&pg=PA155. Retrieved 14 November 2011. 

Further reading

• Prem Poddar and David Johnson, A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Liteartures in English, 2005
• John Thieme, The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English
• Chelsea 46: World Literature in English (1987)
• Poetry International 7/8 (2003–2004)
• Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds.), Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English
• John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism, second edition (MUP, 2010).
• Alamgir Hashmi, Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-definition of a Popular/Counter Culture
• Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors
• Britta Olinde, A Sense of Place: Essays in Post-Colonial Literatures
• Peter Thompson, Littérature moderne du monde francophone. Chicago: NTC (McGraw-Hill), 1997
• Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture', Routledge 1994, ISBN 0-415-05406-0
• Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israeli Conflict edited by Philip Carl Salzman and Donna Robinson Divine, Routledge (2008)

External links

• Contemporary Postcolonial and Postimperial Literature
• TSAR Publications