Autorentext

Lorna Burns is Senior Lecturer in Postcolonial Literatures in the School of English at the University of St Andrews, UK. She is the author of Postcolonialism After World Literature: Relation, Equality, Dissent (2019) and Contemporary Caribbean Writing and Deleuze: Literature Between Postcolonialism and Post-Continental Philosophy (2012).

Klappentext

Engagements with Postcolonial Literature and Theory offers a detailed exploration of the debates, theories, texts, and themes that have shaped the evolution of postcolonial literary studies. Encompassing prose, poetry, and drama, this book navigates the history of postcolonial literature and its criticism.

Each chapter is framed by a postcolonial author's own literary 'engagement'. Case studies on Chinua Achebe, Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott, Ng g wa Thiong'o, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Junot Diaz, Jean Rhys, Hari Kunzru, Arundhati Roy, and J. M. Coetzee elucidate each chapter's central concepts and themes: colonial subjects and rebels; nations and nationalism after decolonisation; postcolonial difference; and subaltern representation. In this book, Lorna Burns tracks the evolution of postcolonial theory from anti-colonialism (Albert Memmi and Frantz Fanon) to the poststructuralist first wave (Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha), the Marxist counter-response (Aijaz Ahmad and Benita Parry), and, finally, looks ahead to new directions in postcolonial theory.

Aimed at students and scholars who are new to postcolonialism, as well as those returning to it for fresh insights and inspiration, this book engages with the complexity of both postcolonial theory and literature to furnish the reader with a fuller understanding of their significance and value, as well as the connections to be forged between them.

Inhalt

Introduction; 1. Colonial Subjects and Rebels: Reading the Colony in Postcolonial Literature and Theory; 2. Postcolonial Nations and Nationalism: Writing the Long History of Decolonisation; 3. On Stereotypes, Mimicry, and a Postcolonial Concept of Difference; 4. The Subaltern and the Second-Wave in Postcolonial Theory and Literature; 5. Case Study: A Postcolonial Engagement with Omeros