Post-colonial literature
Encyclopedia : P : PO : POS : Post-colonial literature
Postcolonial literature is a branch of Postmodern literature concerned with the political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires.
Post-colonial literary critics re-examine classic literature with a particular focus on the social "discourse" that shaped it. For instance, in Orientalism, Edward Said, analyzes the works of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire and Lautréamont, exploring how they were both influenced by and helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority. Post-colonial fictional writers interact with the traditional colonial discourse, but modify or subvert it; for instance by retelling a familiar story from the perspective of an oppressed minor character in the story.
Notable authors
- Chinua Achebe
- Mariama Ba
- Dionne Brand
- Michelle Cliff
- J.M. Coetzee
- Maryse Condé
- Tsitsi Dangarembga
- Anita Desai
- Buchi Emecheta
- Brian Friel
- Athol Fugard
- Edouard Glissant
- Jorge Majfud
- Nadine Gordimer
- Patricia Grace
- Jamaica Kincaid
- Ahmadou Kourouma
- Hanif Kureishi
- Earl Lovelace
- Gabriel García Márquez
- Rohinton Mistry
- Bharati Mukherjee
- V. S. Naipaul
- R. K. Narayan
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
- Jean Rhys
- Arundhati Roy
- Salman Rushdie
- Shyam Selvadurai
- Léopold Senghor
- Bapsi Sidhwa
- Zadie Smith
- Derek Walcott
- Sam Selvon
- Akin Adesokan
- Martin Espada
- Wole Soyinka
- Wilbur Smith
- J. K. Rowling
Other important authors in postcolonial theory
Joseph Conrad and Charlotte Brontë are not "post-colonial" authors per se, but are of specific interest within postcolonial theory in part because postcolonial authors such as Chinua Achebe and Jean Rhys (among others) engage and rework their novels. Shakespeare's The Tempest has a colonial setting and his Othello has a racial dynamic, and both of these are frequent points of reference for post-colonial authors.Notable critics
See also
- Colonialism
- Indian writing in English
- Francophone literature
- Postcolonial theory
- Vernacular literature
- Migrant literature
- Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry
References
- The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English edited by John Thieme
- Chelsea 46: World Literature in English (1987)
- Poetry International 7/8 (2003-2004)
- Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English edited by Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly
- Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-definition of a Popular/Counter Culture by Alamgir Hashmi
- Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors by Elleke Boehmer
- A Sense of Place: Essays in Post-Colonial Literatures edited by Britta Olinder
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.