Postcolonial Literature
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Postcolonial literature is the
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...
by people from formerly colonized countries, originating from all
continent A continent is any of several large geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention (norm), convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single large landmass, a part of a very large landmass, as ...
s except
Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
.
Postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...
literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the
colonization 475px, Map of the year each country achieved List of sovereign states by date of formation, independence. Colonization (British English: colonisation) is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples f ...
and subsequent
decolonization Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...
of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and themes such as
racialism Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that the human species is divided into biologically distinct taxa called " races", and that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racial discri ...
and
colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
. A range of
literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...
has evolved around the subject. It addresses the role of literature in perpetuating and challenging what postcolonial critic
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
refers to as
cultural imperialism Cultural imperialism (also cultural colonialism) comprises the culture, cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" describes practices in which a country engages culture (language, tradition, ritual, politics, economics) to creat ...
. It is at its most overt in texts that write back to the European canon (Thieme 2001).
Migrant literature Migrant literature, sometimes written by migrants themselves, tells stories of immigration. Settings Although any experience of migration would qualify an author to be classed under migrant literature, the main focus of recent research has been on ...
and postcolonial literature show some considerable overlap. However, not all migration takes place in a colonial setting, and not all postcolonial literature deals with migration. A question of current debate is the extent to which postcolonial theory also speaks to migration literature in non-colonial settings.


Terminology

The significance of the prefix "post-" in "postcolonial" is a matter of contention among scholars and historians. In postcolonial studies, there has not been a unified consensus on when
colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...
began and when it has ended (with numerous scholars contending that it has not). The contention has been influenced by the
history of colonialism The phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by various civilizations such as the Phoenicians, Babylonia, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Roman Empire, Rom ...
, which is commonly divided into several major phases; the
European colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale colonization of the Americas, involving a number of European countries, took place primarily between the late 15th century and the early 19th century. The Norse explored and colonized areas of Europe a ...
began in the 15th century and lasted until the 19th, while the
colonisation of Africa External colonies were first founded in Africa Colonies in antiquity, during antiquity. Ancient Greece, Ancient Greeks and Ancient Rome, Romans established colonies on the African continent in North Africa, similar to how they established settl ...
and
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
reached their peak in the 19th century. By the dawn of the 20th century, the vast majority of non-European regions were under European colonial rule; this would last until after the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
when anti-colonial independence movements led to the decolonization of Africa,
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
and
the Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.'' Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sin ...
. Historians have also expressed differing opinions in regards to the postcolonial status of nations established through
settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a logic and structure of displacement by Settler, settlers, using colonial rule, over an environment for replacing it and its indigenous peoples with settlements and the society of the settlers. Settler colonialism is ...
, such as the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
and
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. Ongoing
neocolonialism Neocolonialism is the control by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony) through indirect means. The term ''neocolonialism'' was first used after World War II to refer to ...
in the
Global South Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. According to UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly com ...
and the effects of colonialism (many of which have persisted after the end of direct colonial rule) have made it difficult to determine whether or not a nation being no longer under colonial rule guarantees its postcolonial status. Pramod Nayar defines postcolonial literature as "that which negotiates with, contests, and subverts Euro-American ideologies and representations"


Evolution of the term

Before the term "postcolonial literature" gained currency among scholars, "commonwealth literature" was used to refer to writing in English from colonies or nations which belonged to the
British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire The B ...
. Even though the term included literature from Britain, it was most commonly used for writing in English written in British colonies. Scholars of commonwealth literature used the term to designate writing in English that dealt with the topic of colonialism. They advocated for its inclusion in literary curricula, hitherto dominated by the British
canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...
. However, the succeeding generation of postcolonial critics, many of whom belonged to the
post-structuralist Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of Power (social and poli ...
philosophical tradition, took issue with the "commonwealth" label for separating non-British writing from "English" language literature written in Britain. They also suggested that texts in this category frequently presented a short-sighted view on the legacy of colonialism. Other terms used for English-language literature from former British colonies include terms that designate a national corpus of writing such as
Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...
or
Canadian literature Canadian literature is written in several languages including Canadian English, English, Canadian French, French, and various Indigenous Canadian languages. It is often divided into French- and English-language literatures, which are rooted in th ...
; numerous terms such as "English Literature Other than British and American", "New Literatures in English", "International Literature in English"; and "World Literatures" were coined. These, however, have been dismissed either as too vague or too inaccurate to represent the vast body of dynamic writing emerging from British colonies during and after the period of direct colonial rule. The term "colonial" and "postcolonial" continue to be used for writing emerging during and after the period of colonial rule respectively.


"Post-colonial" or "postcolonial"?

The consensus in the field is that "post-colonial" (with a hyphen) signifies a period that comes chronologically "after" colonialism. "Postcolonial," on the other hand, signals the persisting impact of colonization across time periods and geographical regions. While the hyphen implies that history unfolds in neatly distinguishable stages from pre- to post-colonial, omitting the hyphen creates a comparative framework by which to understand the varieties of local resistance to colonial impact. Arguments in favor of the hyphen suggest that the term "postcolonial" dilutes differences between colonial histories in different parts of the world and that it homogenizes colonial societies. The body of critical writing that participates in these debates is called Postcolonial theory.


Critical approaches

Postcolonial fiction writers deal with the traditional colonial
discourse Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. F ...
, either by modifying or by subverting it, or both. Postcolonial
literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, m ...
re-examines colonial and postcolonial literature, especially concentrating upon the social discourse between the colonizer and the colonized that shaped and produced the literature. In ''
Orientalism In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
'' (1978),
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
analyzed the fiction of
Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly ; ; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence ''La Comédie humaine'', which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is ...
,
Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...
, and Lautréamont (Isidore-Lucien Ducasse), exploring how they shaped and were influenced by the societal fantasy of European racial superiority. He pioneered the branch of postcolonial criticism called colonial discourse analysis. Another important theorist of colonial discourse is
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
professor
Homi K. Bhabha Homi Kharshedji Bhabha (; born 1 November 1949) is an Indian people, Indian scholar and Critical Theorist, critical theorist. He is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figur ...
, (born 1949). He has developed a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as
hybridity Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and ...
, third-space,
mimicry In evolutionary biology, mimicry is an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organism of another species. Mimicry may evolve between different species, or between individuals of the same species. In the simples ...
, difference, and ambivalence.Huddart, David. "Homi K. Bhabha", Routledge Critical Thinkers, 2006 Western canonical works like
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's ''
The Tempest ''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, th ...
,''
Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...
's ''
Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...
,''
Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...
's ''
Mansfield Park ''Mansfield Park'' is the third published novel by the English author Jane Austen, first published in 1814 by Thomas Egerton (publisher), Thomas Egerton. A second edition was published in 1816 by John Murray (publishing house), John Murray, st ...
,''
Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...
's '' Kim,'' and
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
's ''
Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgium, Belgian company in the African interior. Th ...
'' have been targets of colonial discourse analysis. The succeeding generation of postcolonial critics focus on texts that " write back" to the colonial center. In general, postcolonial theory analyzes how anti-colonial ideas, such as anti-conquest, national unity, ''
négritude ''Négritude'' (from French "nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians in the Africa ...
'',
pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is a nationalist movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atla ...
and
postcolonial feminism Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long- ...
were forged in and promulgated through literature. Prominent theorists include
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (; born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative ...
,
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...
, Bill Ashcroft,
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5January 193828May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in Eng ...
, Chinua Achebe, Leela Gandhi, Gareth Griffiths, Abiola Irele, John McLeod, Hamid Dabashi, Helen Tiffin, Khal Torabully, and Robert J. C. Young.


Nationalism

The sense of identification with a nation, or
nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...
, fueled anti-colonial movements that sought to gain independence from colonial rule. Language and literature were factors in consolidating this sense of
national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
to resist the impact of colonialism. With the advent of the
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...
, newspapers and magazines helped people across geographical barriers identify with a shared national community. This idea of the
nation A nation is a type of social organization where a collective Identity (social science), identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, t ...
as a homogeneous
imagined community An imagined community is a concept developed by Benedict Anderson in his 1983 book '' Imagined Communities'' to analyze nationalism. Anderson depicts a nation as a socially-constructed community, imagined by the people who perceive themselves a ...
connected across geographical barriers through the medium of language became the model for the modern nation. Postcolonial literature not only helped consolidate national identity in anti-colonial struggles but also critiqued the European colonial pedigree of nationalism. As depicted in
Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...
's novels for example, the homogeneous nation was built on European models by the exclusion of marginalized voices. They were made up of religious or ethnic elites who spoke on behalf of the entire nation, silencing minority groups.


Negritude, pan-Africanism and pan-nationalism

''
Négritude ''Négritude'' (from French "nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, mainly developed by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians in the Africa ...
'' is a literary and ideological philosophy, developed by francophone African
intellectuals An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
, writers, and politicians in France during the 1930s. Its initiators included Martinican poet
Aimé Césaire Aimé Fernand David Césaire (; ; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author, and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He ...
, Léopold Sédar Senghor (a future President of Senegal), and Léon Damas of French Guiana. Négritude intellectuals disapproved of French colonialism and claimed that the best strategy to oppose it was to encourage a common racial identity for native Africans worldwide.
Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism is a nationalist movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous peoples of Africa, indigenous peoples and diasporas of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atla ...
was a movement among English-speaking black intellectuals who echoed the principles négritude.
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...
(1925–1961), a
Martinique Martinique ( ; or ; Kalinago language, Kalinago: or ) is an island in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. It was previously known as Iguanacaera which translates to iguana island in Carib language, Kariʼn ...
-born
Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean or African Caribbean people are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Indigenous peoples of Africa, Africans (primarily fr ...
psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer, was one of the proponents of the movement. His works are influential in the fields of postcolonial studies,
critical theory Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are ...
, and
Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
. As an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical and Marxist humanist concerned with the
psychopathology Psychopathology is the study of mental illness. It includes the signs and symptoms of all mental disorders. The field includes Abnormal psychology, abnormal cognition, maladaptive behavior, and experiences which differ according to social norms ...
of colonization, and the human, social, and cultural consequences of
decolonization Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...
.


Back to Africa movement

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. (1887–1940), another proponent of Pan-Africanism, was a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and
orator An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled. Etymology Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14 ...
. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). He also founded the Black Star Line, a shipping and passenger line which promoted the return of the
African diaspora The African diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from List of ethnic groups of Africa, people from Africa. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West Africa, West and Central Africans who were ...
to their ancestral lands. Prior to the 20th century, leaders such as
Prince Hall Prince Hall (December 7, 1807) was an American Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist and leader in the Free negro, free black community in Boston. He founded Prince Hall Freemasonry and lobbied for Right to education, education rights ...
, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Henry Highland Garnet advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs. However, Garvey was unique in advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa. The philosophy came to be known as Garveyism. Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of ''African Redemption'', Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the
Nation of Islam The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A centralized and hierarchical organization, the NOI is committed to black nationalism and focuses its attention on the Afr ...
to the
Rastafari Rastafari is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion. There is no central authori ...
movement (some sects of which proclaim Garvey as a prophet). Against advocates of literature that promoted African racial solidarity in accordance with negritude principles,
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...
argued for a national literature aimed at achieving national liberation. Paul Gilroy argued against reading literature both as an expression of a common black racial identity and as a representation of nationalist sentiments. Rather, he argued that black cultural forms—including literature—were diasporic and transnational formations born out of the common historical and geographical effects of transatlantic slavery.


Anti-conquest

The "anti-conquest narrative" recasts the indigenous inhabitants of colonized countries as victims rather than foes of the colonisers. This depicts the colonised people in a more human light but risks absolving colonisers of responsibility by assuming that native inhabitants were "doomed" to their fate. In her book ''Imperial Eyes,'' Mary Louise Pratt analyzes the strategies by which European travel writing portrays Europe as a secure home space against a contrasting representation of colonized outsiders. She proposes a completely different theorization of "anti-conquest" than the ideas discussed here, one that can be traced to Edward Said. Instead of referring to how natives resist colonization or are victims of it, Pratt analyzes texts in which a European narrates his adventures and struggles to survive in the land of the non-European Other."Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation" (1992). In chapters 3 and 4, titled, "Narrating the Anti-Conquest" and "Anti-Conquest II: Mystique of Reciprocity". This secures the innocence of the imperialist even as he exercises his dominance, a strategy Pratt terms "anti-conquest." The anti-conquest is a function of how the narrator writes him or her self out of being responsible for or an agent, direct or indirect, of colonization and colonialism. This different notion of anti-conquest is used to analyze the ways in which colonialism and colonization are legitimized through stories of survival and adventure that purport to inform or entertain. Pratt created this unique notion in association with concepts of contact zone and
transculturation Transculturation is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in 1940 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. Transculturation encompasses more than transition from one culture to another; it does not consist me ...
, which have been very well received in Latin America social and human science circles. The terms refer to the conditions and effects of encounter between the colonizer and the colonized.


Postcolonial feminist literature

Postcolonial feminism Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long- ...
emerged as a response to the Eurocentric focus of
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...
. It accounts for the way that
racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...
and the long-lasting political, economic, and cultural effects of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial feminism is not simply a subset of postcolonial studies or another variety of feminism. Rather, it seeks to act as an intervention that changes the assumptions of both postcolonial and feminist studies.
Audre Lorde Audre Lorde ( ; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, professor, philosopher, Intersectional feminism, intersectional feminist, poet and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "Bl ...
's foundational essay, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House", uses the metaphor of the master's tools and master's house to explain that western feminism fails to make positive change for third world women because it uses the same tools as the patriarchy. Postcolonial feminist fiction seeks to decolonize the imagination and society. With global debt, labor, and environmental crises one the rise, the precarious position of women (especially in the global south) has become a prevalent concern of postcolonial feminist novels. Common themes include women's roles in globalized societies and the impact of mass migration to metropolitan urban centers. Pivotal texts, including Nawal El Saadawi's The Fall of the Iman about the lynching of women, Chimamanda Adichie's ''
Half of a Yellow Sun ''Half of a Yellow Sun'' is a 2006 novel by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It became instantly successful after its publication; in the United States and Nigeria, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. ''Half of a Y ...
'' about two sisters in pre and post war Nigeria, and
Giannina Braschi Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include '' Empire of Dreams'' (1988), '' Yo-Yo Boing!'' (1998), '' United States of Banana'' (2011), and '' Putinoika'' (2024). ...
's United States of Banana which declares the independence of Puerto Rico. Other major voices include Maryse Condé, Fatou Diome, and Marie NDiaye. Postcolonial feminist cultural theorists include Rey Chow, Maria Lugones,
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (; born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative ...
, and
Trinh T. Minh-ha Trinh T. Minh-ha (born 1952 in Hanoi; Vietnamese: Trịnh Thị Minh Hà) is a Vietnamese filmmaker, writer, literary theorist, composer, and professor. She has been making films since the 1980s and is best known for her films Reassemblage (film ...
.


Pacific Islands

The ''
Pacific Islands The Pacific islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term ''Pacific Islands'' may refer to one of several ...
'' comprise 20,000 to 30,000
island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...
s in the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
. Depending on the context, it may refer to countries and islands with common Austronesian origins, islands once or currently colonized, or
Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...
. There is a burgeoning group of young pacific writers who respond and speak to the contemporary Pasifika experience, including writers Lani Wendt Young, Courtney Sina Meredith and Selina Tusitala Marsh. Reclamation of culture, loss of culture,
diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of birth, place of origin. The word is used in reference to people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently resi ...
, all themes common to postcolonial literature, are present within the collective Pacific writers. Pioneers of the literature include two of the most influential living authors from this region:
Witi Ihimaera Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler (; born 7 February 1944) is a New Zealand author. Raised in the small town of Waituhi, he decided to become a writer as a teenager after being convinced that Māori people, Māori people were ignored or mischaracteri ...
,
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
's first published Māori novelist, and
Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa and known until 1997 as Western Samoa, is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu), two smaller, inhabited ...
n poet Albert Wendt (born 1939). Wendt lives in New Zealand. Among his works is ''Leaves of the Banyan Tree'' (1979). He is of German heritage through his paternal great-grandfather, which is reflected in some of his poems. He describes his family heritage as "totally Samoan", even though he has a German surname. However, he does not explicitly deny his German heritage. Another notable figure from the region is Sia Figiel (born 1967), a contemporary Samoan novelist, poet, and painter, whose debut novel ''Where We Once Belonged'' won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize ''Best First Book of 1997,'' ''South East Asia and South Pacific Region''. Sia Figiel grew up amidst traditional Samoan singing and poetry, which heavily influenced her writing. Figiel's greatest influence and inspiration in her career is the Samoan novelist and poet, Albert Wendt.


Australia

At the point of the first colonization of Australia from 1788,
Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...
( Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Torres Strait Islanders ( ) are the Indigenous Melanesians, Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal peoples of the res ...
people) had not developed a system of writing, so the first literary accounts of Aboriginal peoples come from the journals of early European explorers, which contain descriptions of first contact, both violent and friendly. Early accounts by Dutch explorers and the English buccaneer William Dampier wrote of the "natives of New Holland" as being "barbarous savages", but by the time of Captain
James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...
and
First Fleet The First Fleet were eleven British ships which transported a group of settlers to mainland Australia, marking the beginning of the History of Australia (1788–1850), European colonisation of Australia. It consisted of two Royal Navy vessel ...
marine Watkin Tench (the era of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...
), accounts of Aboriginal peoples were more sympathetic and romantic: "these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than ... we Europeans", wrote Cook in his journal on 23 August 1770. While his father, James Unaipon (c. 1835–1907), contributed to accounts of
Aboriginal mythology Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology is the sacred spirituality represented in the stories performed by Aboriginal Australians within each of the Aboriginal Australian languages, language groups across Australia in their Aboriginal c ...
written by the South Australian missionary George Taplin,
David Unaipon David Ngunaitponi (28 September 1872 – 7 February 1967), known as David Unaipon, was an Aboriginal Australian preacher, inventor, and author. A Ngarrindjeri man, his contribution to Australian society helped to break many stereotypes of Abo ...
(1872–1967) provided the first accounts of Aboriginal mythology written by an Aboriginal person in his ''Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines''. For this he is known as the first Aboriginal author. Oodgeroo Noonuccal (born Kath Walker, 1920–1995) was an Australian poet, political activist, artist and educator. She was also a campaigner for Aboriginal rights. Oodgeroo was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse, ''We Are Going'' (1964). Sally Morgan's novel '' My Place'' (1987) was considered a breakthrough memoir in terms of bringing Indigenous stories to wider notice. Leading Aboriginal activists Marcia Langton ('' First Australians'', 2008) and Noel Pearson (''Up From the Mission'', 2009) are active contemporary contributors to
Australian literature Australian literature is the literature, written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Australia, Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western culture, Western history, Australia was a ...
. The voices of Indigenous Australians continue to be increasingly noticed, and include the playwright Jack Davis and Kevin Gilbert. Writers coming to prominence in the 21st century include Kim Scott,
Alexis Wright Alexis Wright (born 25 November 1950) is an Aboriginal Australian writer. She is best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel '' Carpentaria''. She was the first writer to win the Stella Prize twice, in 2018 for her "colle ...
, Kate Howarth, Tara June Winch, in poetry Yvette Holt and in popular fiction Anita Heiss. Indigenous authors who have won Australia's high prestige
Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the Will (law), will of Miles Franklin ...
include Kim Scott who was joint winner (with Thea Astley) in 2000 for '' Benang'' and again in 2011 for '' That Deadman Dance.'' Alexis Wright won the award in 2007 for her novel '' Carpentaria''. Bruce Pascoe's '' Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?'' (2014), which, based on research already done by others but rarely included in standard historical narratives, reexamines colonial accounts of Aboriginal people in Australia and cites evidence of pre-colonial
agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
,
engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...
and
building construction Construction are processes involved in delivering buildings, infrastructure, industrial facilities, and associated activities through to the end of their life. It typically starts with planning, financing, and design that continues until the a ...
by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The book won much acclaim, winning the Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Award and others, as well as selling very well: by 2019 it was in its 28the printing and had sold over 100,000 copies. Many notable works have been written by non-Indigenous Australians on Aboriginal themes. Eleanor Dark's (1901–1985) '' The Timeless Land'' (1941) is the first of ''The Timeless Land'' trilogy of novels about European settlement and exploration of Australia. The narrative is told from European and Aboriginal points of view. Other examples include the poems of Judith Wright, ''
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith ''The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith'' is a 1972 Booker Prize-nominated Australian novel by Thomas Keneally, and a 1978 Australian film of the same name directed by Fred Schepisi. The novel is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor, the ...
'' by
Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his historical fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler' ...
, ''Ilbarana'' by Donald Stuart, and the short story by
David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and Libretto, librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University ...
: "The Only Speaker of his Tongue".


Africa

Amadou Hampâté Bâ (1901–1991), a
Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...
an writer and ethnologist, and Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) from
Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...
, author of '' Two Thousand Seasons'' have tried to establish an African perspective to their own history. Another significant African novel is ''
Season of Migration to the North ''Season of Migration to the North'' ( ) is novel by the Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih, first published serially in the Beirut journal '' Hiwâr'' in 1966. It became Salih's best known work and is considered a classic of postcolonial literature. T ...
'' by Tayib Salih from the
Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...
. Doris Lessing (1919–2013) from
Southern Rhodesia Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...
, now
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, published her first novel '' The Grass is Singing'' in 1950, after immigrating to England. She initially wrote about her African experiences. Lessing soon became a dominant presence in the English literary scene, frequently publishing right through the century, and won the
Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...
in 2007.
Yvonne Vera Yvonne Vera (19 September 1964 – 7 April 2005) was an author from Zimbabwe. Her first published book was a collection of short stories, ''Why Don't You Carve Other Animals'' (1992), which was followed by five novels: ''Nehanda'' (1993), ''With ...
(1964–2005) was an author from Zimbabwe. Her novels are known for their poetic prose, difficult subject-matter, and their strong women characters, and are firmly rooted in Zimbabwe's difficult past. Tsitsi Dangarembga (born 1959) is a notable Zimbabwean author and filmmaker.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5January 193828May 2025) was a Kenyan author and academic, who has been described as East Africa's leading novelist and an important figure in modern African literature. Ngũgĩ wrote primarily in Eng ...
(born 1938) is a Kenyan writer, formerly working in English and now working in Gikuyu. His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal '' Mũtĩiri''. Stephen Atalebe (born 1983) is a Ghanaian Fiction writer who wrote the Hour of Death in Harare, detailing the post-colonial struggles in Zimbabwe as they navigate through sanctions imposed by the British Government under George Blair. Bate Besong (1954–2007) was a
Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...
ian playwright, poet and critic, who was described by Pierre Fandio as "one of the most representative and regular writers of what might be referred to as the second generation of the emergent Cameroonian literature in English". Other Cameroonian playwrights are Anne Tanyi-Tang, and Bole Butake. Dina Salústio (born 1941) is a Cabo Verdean novelist and poet, whose works are considered an important contribution to Lusophone postcolonial literature, with a particular emphasis on their promotion of women's narratives.


Nigeria

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) gained worldwide attention for ''
Things Fall Apart ''Things Fall Apart'' is a 1958 novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. It is Achebe's debut novel and was written when he was working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. The novel was first published in London by Heinemann (publisher), ...
'' in the late 1950s. Achebe wrote his novels in English and defended the use of English, a "language of colonisers", in African literature. In 1975, his lecture " An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness''" featured a famous criticism of
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
as "a thoroughgoing racist". A titled Igbo
chieftain A tribal chief, chieftain, or headman is a leader of a tribe, tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies There is no definition for "tribe". The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of weste ...
himself, Achebe's novels focus on the traditions of Igbo society, the effect of Christian influences, and the clash of Western and traditional African values during and after the colonial era. His style relies heavily on the Igbo oral tradition, and combines straightforward narration with representations of folk stories, proverbs, and oratory. He also published a number of short stories, children's books, and essay collections.
Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka , (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two transla ...
(born 1934) is a playwright and poet, who was awarded the 1986
Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...
, the first African to be honored in that category. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. After studying in
Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
and Great Britain, he worked with the
Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...
in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967 during the
Nigerian Civil War The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Biafran War, Nigeria-Biafra War, or Biafra War, was fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a Secession, secessionist state which had declared its independen ...
, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.Theresia de Vroom
"The Many Dimensions of Wole Soyinka"
, ''Vistas'', Loyola Marymount University. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
Soyinka has been a strong critic of successive Nigerian governments, especially the country's many military dictators, as well as other political tyrannies, including the Mugabe regime in
Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
. Much of his writing has been concerned with "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it".
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born Grace Ngozi Adichie; 15 September 1977) is a Nigerians, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, poem, and children's books; she is also a book reviewer and literary critic. Her most famous works include ''Purple ...
(born 1977) is a novelist, nonfiction writer and short story writer. A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Adichie has been called "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors
hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...
is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature". Buchi Emecheta OBE (1944–2017) was a Nigerian novelist based in Britain who published more than 20 books, including ''
Second-Class Citizen A second-class citizen is a person who is systematically and actively discriminated against within a state or other political jurisdiction, despite their nominal status as a citizen or a legal resident there. While not necessarily slaves, ou ...
'' (1974), '' The Bride Price'' (1976), '' The Slave Girl'' (1977) and '' The Joys of Motherhood'' (1979). Her themes of child slavery, motherhood, female independence and freedom through education won her considerable critical acclaim and honours.


South Africa

Elleke Boehmer writes, "Nationalism, like patriarchy, favours singleness—one identity, one growth pattern, one birth and blood for all ... ndwill promote specifically unitary or 'one-eyed' forms of consciousness." The first problem any student of South African literature is confronted with, is the diversity of the literary systems. Gerrit Olivier notes, "While it is not unusual to hear academics and politicians talk about a 'South African literature', the situation at ground level is characterised by diversity and even fragmentation". Robert Mossman adds that "One of the enduring and saddest legacies of the apartheid system may be that no one – White, Black, Coloured (meaning of mixed-race in South Africa), or Asian – can ever speak as a 'South African. The problem, however, pre-dates
Apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English:  , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
significantly, as South Africa is a country made up of communities that have always been linguistically and culturally diverse. These cultures have all retained autonomy to some extent, making a compilation such as the controversial ''Southern African Literatures'' by Michael Chapman, difficult. Chapman raises the question:
ose language, culture, or story can be said to have authority in South Africa when the end of apartheid has raised challenging questions as to what it is to be a South African, what it is to live in a new South Africa, whether South Africa is a nation, and, if so, what its mythos is, what requires to be forgotten and what remembered as we scour the past in order to understand the present and seek a path forward into an unknown future.
South Africa has 11 national languages:
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, Venda, SiSwati,
Tsonga Tsonga may refer to: * Tsonga language, a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa * Tsonga people, a large group of people living mainly in southern Mozambique and South Africa. * Jo-Wilfried Tsonga Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (; born 17 April 1985) ...
, and Ndebele. Any definitive literary history of South Africa should, it could be argued, discuss literature produced in all eleven languages. But the only literature ever to adopt characteristics that can be said to be "national" is Afrikaans. Olivier argues: "Of all the literatures in South Africa, Afrikaans literature has been the only one to have become a national literature in the sense that it developed a clear image of itself as a separate entity, and that by way of institutional entrenchment through teaching, distribution, a review culture, journals, etc. it could ensure the continuation of that concept." Part of the problem is that English literature has been seen within the greater context of English writing in the world, and has, because of English's global position as ''lingua franca'', not been seen as autonomous or indigenous to South Africa – in Olivier's words: "English literature in South Africa continues to be a sort of extension of British or international English literature." The African languages, on the other hand, are spoken across the borders of Southern Africa - for example, Tswana is spoken in Botswana, and Tsonga in Zimbabwe, and Sotho in Lesotho. South Africa's borders were established during the colonial era and, as with all other colonies, these borders were drawn without regard for the people living within them. Therefore: in a history of South African literature, do we include all Tswana writers, or only the ones with South African citizenship? Chapman bypasses this problem by including "Southern" African literatures. The second problem with the African languages is accessibility, because since the African languages are regional languages, none of them can claim the readership on a national scale comparable to Afrikaans and English. Sotho, for instance, while transgressing the national borders of the RSA, is on the other hand mainly spoken in the Free State, and bears a great amount of relation to the language of Natal for example, Zulu. So the language cannot claim a national readership, while on the other hand being "international" in the sense that it transgresses the national borders. Olivier argues that "There is no obvious reason why it should be unhealthy or abnormal for different literatures to co-exist in one country, each possessing its own infrastructure and allowing theoreticians to develop impressive theories about polysystems". Yet political idealism proposing a unified "South Africa" (a remnant of the plans drawn up by Sir Henry Bartle Frere) has seeped into literary discourse and demands a unified national literature, which does not exist and has to be fabricated. It is unrealistic to ever think of South Africa and South African literature as homogenous, now or in the near or distant future, since the only reason it is a country at all is the interference of European colonial powers. This is not a racial issue, but rather has to do with culture, heritage and tradition (and indeed the constitution celebrates diversity). Rather, it seems more sensible to discuss South African literature as literature produced within the national borders by the different cultures and language groups inhabiting these borders. Otherwise the danger is emphasising one literary system at the expense of another, and more often than not, the beneficiary is English, with the African languages being ignored. The distinction "black" and "white" literature is further a remnant of colonialism that should be replaced by drawing distinctions between literary systems based on language affiliation rather than race. The first texts produced by black authors were often inspired by missionaries and frequently deal with African history, in particular the history of kings such as Chaka. Modern South African writing in the African languages tends to play at writing realistically, at providing a mirror to society, and depicts the conflicts between rural and urban settings, between traditional and modern norms, racial conflicts and most recently, the problem of AIDS. In the first half of the 20th century, epics largely dominated black writing: historical novels, such as Sol T. Plaatje's '' Mhudi: An Epic of South African Native Life a Hundred Years Ago'' (1930), Thomas Mofolo's '' Chaka'' (trans. 1925), and epic plays including those of H. I. E. Dhlomo, or heroic epic poetry such as the work of Mazizi Kunene. These texts "evince black African patriarchy in its traditional form, with men in authority, often as warriors or kings, and women as background figures of dependency, and/or mothers of the nation". Female literature in the African languages is severely limited because of the strong influence of patriarchy, but over the last decade or two society has changed much and it can be expected that more female voices will emerge. The following are notable white South African writers in English:
Athol Fugard Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard (; 11 June 19328 March 2025) was a South African playwright, novelist, actor and director. Widely regarded as South Africa's greatest playwright and acclaimed as "the greatest active playwright in the English-speaki ...
,
Nadine Gordimer Nadine Gordimer (20 November 192313 July 2014) was a South African writer and political activist. She received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1991, recognised as a writer "who through her magnificent epic writing has ... been of very great ben ...
,
J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...
, and
Wilbur Smith Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Northern Rhodesian-born British-South African novelist specializing in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries. He gained a f ...
. André Brink has written in both Afrikaans and English while
Breyten Breytenbach Breyten Breytenbach (; 16 September 193924 November 2024) was a South African writer, poet, and painter. He became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of ...
writes primarily in Afrikaans, though many of their works have been translated into English. Dalene Matthee's (1938–2005) is another Afrikaner, best known for her four ''Forest Novels'', written in and around the Knysna Forest, including '' Fiela se Kind'' (1985) (''Fiela's Child''). Her books have been translated into fourteen languages, including English, French, and German. and over a million copies have been sold worldwide.


The Americas


Caribbean Islands

Maryse Condé (born 1937) is a French (
Guadeloupe Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...
an) author of
historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which a fictional plot takes place in the Setting (narrative), setting of particular real past events, historical events. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literatur ...
, best known for her novel '' Segu'' (1984–1985).


West Indies

The term "
West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
" first began to achieve wide currency in the 1950s, when writers such as
Samuel Selvon Samuel Dickson Selvon (20 May 1923 – 16 April 1994)"Samuel Selvon"
''Encyclop ...
, John Hearne, Edgar Mittelholzer, V.S. Naipaul, and George Lamming began to be published in the United Kingdom. A sense of a single literature developing across the islands was also encouraged in the 1940s by the
BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
radio programme '' Caribbean Voices'', which featured stories and poems written by West Indian authors, recorded in London under the direction of producer Henry Swanzy, and broadcast back to the islands. Magazines such as '' Kyk-Over-Al'' in Guyana, ''
Bim Building information modeling (BIM) is an approach involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings or other physical assets and facilities. BIM is supported by vario ...
'' in Barbados, and ''
Focus Focus (: foci or focuses) may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in East Australia Film *Focus (2001 film), ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel *Focus (2015 ...
'' in Jamaica, which published work by writers from across the region, also encouraged links and helped build an audience. Some West Indian writers have found it necessary to leave their home territories and base themselves in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, or
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
in order to make a living from their work—in some cases spending the greater parts of their careers away from the territories of their birth. Critics in their adopted territories might argue that, for instance, V. S. Naipaul ought to be considered a British writer instead of a Trinidadian writer, or Jamaica Kincaid and Paule Marshall American writers, but most West Indian readers and critics still consider these writers "West Indian". West Indian literature ranges over subjects and themes as wide as those of any other "national" literature, but in general many West Indian writers share a special concern with questions of identity, ethnicity, and language that rise out of the Caribbean historical experience. One unique and pervasive characteristic of Caribbean literature is the use of "
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
" forms of the national language, often termed creole. The various local variations in the
European languages There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three larges ...
which became established in the West Indies during the period of European colonial rule. These languages have been modified over the years within each country and each has developed a blend that is unique to their country. Many Caribbean authors in their writing switch liberally between the local variation – now commonly termed nation language – and the standard form of the language. Two West Indian writers have won the
Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...
: Derek Walcott (1992), born in St. Lucia, resident mostly in Trinidad during the 1960s and '70s, and partly in the United States since then; and V. S. Naipaul, born in Trinidad and resident in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
since the 1950. ( Saint-John Perse, who won the Nobel Prize in 1960, was born in the French territory of
Guadeloupe Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...
.) Other notable names in (anglophone) Caribbean literature have included Earl Lovelace, Austin Clarke,
Claude McKay Festus Claudius "Claude" McKay OJ (September 15, 1890See Wayne F. Cooper, ''Claude McKay, Rebel Sojourner In The Harlem Renaissance'' (New York, Schocken, 1987) p. 377 n. 19. As Cooper's authoritative biography explains, McKay's family predate ...
, Orlando Patterson, Andrew Salkey, Edward Kamau Brathwaite (who was born in Barbados and has lived in Ghana and Jamaica), Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Michelle Cliff. In more recent times, a number of literary voices have emerged from the Caribbean as well as the Caribbean diaspora, including Kittitian Caryl Phillips (who has lived in the UK since one month of age), Edwidge Danticat, a
Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
an immigrant to the United States; Anthony Kellman from Barbados, who divides his time between Barbados and the United States; Andrea Levy of the United Kingdom, Jamaicans Colin Channer and Marlon James, the author of the
Man Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
-winning novel '' A Brief History of Seven Killings'' (2014) (as well as '' John Crow's Devil'', '' The Book of Night Women'', the unpublished screenplay "Dead Men", and the short story "Under Cover of Darkness"), Antiguan Marie-Elena John, and Lasana M. Sekou from St. Maarten/St. Martin. The most famous writer from the island of
Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...
is British-Dominican author
Jean Rhys Jean Rhys, ( ; born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams; 24 August 1890 – 14 May 1979) was a novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she resided mainly in England, where she was sent for her educa ...
, best known for her 1966 novel '' Wide Sargasso Sea'', which was written as a
prequel A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. The term ...
to
Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...
's ''
Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...
''. The novel deals with themes of women living in a
patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of authority are primarily held by men. The term ''patriarchy'' is used both in anthropology to describe a family or clan controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males, and in fem ...
society, race, and assimilation. On 5 November 2019, ''
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
'' listed ''Wide Sargasso Sea'' on its list of the 100 most influential novels. The novel has been adapted for stage, film and radio numerous times, most recently as a radio play by
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
. Earl Lovelace (born 1935) is a Trinidadian novelist, journalist, playwright, and short story writer. He is particularly recognized for his descriptive, dramatic fiction on Trinidadian culture: "Using Trinidadian dialect patterns and standard English, he probes the paradoxes often inherent in social change as well as the clash between rural and urban cultures." As
Bernardine Evaristo Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo (born 28 May 1959) is an English author and academic. Her novel ''Girl, Woman, Other'' jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's ''The Testaments'', making her the first Black woman to win ...
notes, "Lovelace is unusual among celebrated Caribbean writers in that he has always lived in Trinidad. Most writers leave to find support for their literary endeavours elsewhere and this, arguably, shapes the literature, especially after long periods of exile. But Lovelace's fiction is deeply embedded in Trinidadian society and is written from the perspective of one whose ties to his homeland have never been broken." The Caribbean Literature Day is celebrated annually on July 12, in the Caribbean region, across all language zones, and by Caribbean literature lovers worldwide.


United States

American David Henry Hwang's play '' M. Butterfly'' addresses the Western perspective on China and the French as well as the American perspectives on
Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...
during the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
. It was inspired by
Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini#Operas, his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he ...
's opera ''
Madama Butterfly ''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is based on the short story " Madame Butterfly" (1898) by John Lu ...
''. Maxine Hong Kingston (born 1940) is a
Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...
author who has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese immigrants living in the United States. Bharati Mukherjee, although of
East India East India is a region consisting of the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal and also the union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The states of Bihar and West Bengal lie on the Indo-Gangetic plain. Jharkhan ...
n ancestry, has gone on record that she considers herself an American writer and not an Indian expatriate writer. In a 1989 interview with Amanda Meer, Mukherjee said: "I totally consider myself an American writer, and that has been my big battle: to get to realize that my roots as a writer are no longer, if they ever were, among Indian writers, but that I am writing about the territory, about the feelings, of a new kind of pioneer here in America. I'm the first among Asian immigrants to be making this distinction between immigrant writing and expatriate writing. Most Indian writers prior to this have still thought of themselves as Indians, and their literary inspiration has come from India. India has been the source and home. Whereas I'm saying, those are wonderful roots, but now my roots are here, and my emotions are here, in North America." Jhumpa Lahiri (born 1967) is an Indian-American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection '' Interpreter of Maladies'' (1999) won the 2000
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
, and her first novel, '' The Namesake'' (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name.Chotiner, Isaac
"Interviews: Jhumpa Lahiri"
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...
, 2008-03-18. Retrieved 2008-04-12.


African-American literature

Throughout American history,
African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...
have been discriminated against and subject to racist attitudes. This experience inspired some Black writers, at least during the early years of
African-American literature African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. Phillis Wheatley was an enslaved African woman who became the first African American to publish a book of poetry, which was publis ...
, to prove they were the equals of European-American authors. As Henry Louis Gates, Jr, has said, "it is fair to describe the subtext of the history of black letters as this urge to refute the claim that because blacks had no written traditions they were bearers of an inferior culture.""The Other Ghost in Beloved: The Specter of the Scarlet Letter" by Jan Stryz from ''The New Romanticism: a collection of critical essays'' by Eberhard Alsen, p. 140, . By refuting the claims of the dominant culture, African-American writers were also attempting to subvert the literary and power traditions of the United States. Some scholars assert that writing has traditionally been seen as "something defined by the dominant culture as a white male activity." This means that, in American society, literary acceptance has traditionally been intimately tied in with the very power dynamics which perpetrated such evils as racial discrimination. By borrowing from and incorporating the non-written oral traditions and folk life of the African diaspora, African-American literature broke "the mystique of connection between literary authority and patriarchal power." In producing their own literature, African Americans were able to establish their own literary traditions devoid of the white intellectual filter. In 1922,
W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relativel ...
wrote that "the great mission of the Negro to America and to the modern world" was to develop "Art and the appreciation of the Beautiful".Mason
"African-American Theory and Criticism"
. Retrieved July 6, 2005.


Puerto Rico

Giannina Braschi Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include '' Empire of Dreams'' (1988), '' Yo-Yo Boing!'' (1998), '' United States of Banana'' (2011), and '' Putinoika'' (2024). ...
(born 1953) is a Puerto Rican writer, who is credited with writing the first
Spanglish Spanglish (a blend of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mostly u ...
novel '' Yo-Yo Boing!'' (1998), the
post-modern Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experi ...
poetry trilogy '' Empire of Dreams'' (1994), and the philosophical fiction '' United States of Banana'' (2011), which chronicles the
Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...
immigrants' experiences in the United States and the Puerto Rican battle with Spanish and American colonialism.


Canada

Canadian writer Margaret Laurence's work was informed by colonial relations and African culture when she lived in
British Somaliland British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate (), was a protectorate of the United Kingdom in modern Somaliland. It was bordered by Italian Somalia, French Somali Coast and Ethiopian Empire, Abyssinia (Italian Ethiopia from 1936 ...
then the Gold Coast British colony in the 1950s near the end of their times as colonies.
Margaret Atwood Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and an inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight chi ...
is a post-colonial writer who dealt with themes of identity-seeking through her Southern Ontario Gothic style of writing. Canadian
Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer and essayist. Ondaatje's literary career began with his poetry in 1967, publishing ''The Dainty Monsters'', and then in 1970 the critically a ...
, is an internationally acclaimed author with
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
n roots, which he has explored in works like '' Running in the Family'' (1983) and '' The Cat's Table'' (2011).
Cyril Dabydeen Cyril Dabydeen (born 1945) is a Guyana-born Canadian writer of Indian descent. He grew up in Rose Hall sugar plantation with the sense of Indian indenture rooted in his family background (he lived with his mother and with a grandmother in an ext ...
(born 1945) is a
Guyana Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern coast of South America, part of the historic British West Indies. entry "Guyana" Georgetown, Guyana, Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is also the co ...
-born, Canadian writer of Indian descent. He grew up in a sugar plantation with the sense of Indian indenture rooted in his family background. African-Canadian
George Elliott Clarke George Elliott Clarke (born February 12, 1960) is a Canadian poet, playwright and literary critic who served as the Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2012 to 2015 and as the Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate in 2016-2017. Clarke's work addresse ...
has promoted Black authors with ''Directions Home: Approaches to African-Canadian Literature'' (2012) as well as his own poetry, novels and plays. In the decade 2008-2018 Canadian Indigenous writers published so many works that some critics called it a renaissance. This phenomenon was studied in ''Introduction to Indigenous Literary Criticism in Canada'' (2015). Eds Heather MacFarlane & Armand Garnet Ruffo. Canadian scholar, Joseph Pivato has promoted the study of ethnic minority authors with ''Comparative Literature for the New Century'' (2018). Eds. Giulia De Gasperi & Joseph Pivato.


East Asia


Korea

Chunghee Sara Soh's book ''The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan'' has shed new light on the practice of having forced sexual slavery, called "comfort women" during the Imperial Japanese army before and during World War II.


West Asia: The Middle East

Major figures in the postcolonial literature of the Middle East included Egyptian novelist
Naguib Mahfouz Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha (, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described him as a writer "who, through wo ...
and Palestinian-American scholar
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
. Said published his most famous work, ''
Orientalism In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
'', discussing the depiction of Asia by the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also const ...
. Mahfouz was inspired to write in a large part by his experiences during the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 (when he was seven years old), including witnessing British soldiers firing on crowds of demonstrators in an effort to disperse them; according to Mahfouz, "You could say ... that the one thing which most shook the security of my childhood was the 1919 revolution", as he recounted in an interview.


South and Southeast Asia


Philippines

Philippine literature includes the legends of prehistory, and the colonial legacy of the Philippines. Pre-Hispanic Philippine literature were actually epics passed on from generation to generation originally through oral tradition. However, wealthy families, especially in Mindanao were able to keep transcribed copies of these epics as family heirloom. One such epic was the '' Darangen'', epic of the Maranaos of Lake Lanao. Most of the epics were known during the Spanish era. Most of the notable literature of the Philippines was written during the Spanish period and the first half of the 20th century in the Spanish language. Philippine literature is written in Spanish, English, or any indigenous
Philippine languages The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (language ...
. Notable authors include F. Sionil José, Jose Dalisay, Jr., N. V. M. Gonzalez and
Nick Joaquin Nicomedes "Nick" Marquez Joaquin (; May 4, 1917 – April 29, 2004) was a Filipino writer and journalist best known for his short story, short stories and novels in the English language. He also wrote using the pen name Quijano de Manila. Joaq ...
.


Indonesia


Dutch East Indies

Dutch Indies literature includes Dutch language postcolonial literature reflecting on the era of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
(now
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
). Much of the postcolonial literature of this genre is written by Dutch Eurasians known as Indos. Important authors that have been translated to English include, Tjalie Robinson, Maria Dermout, and Marion Bloem.


Singapore

Bonny Hicks (1968–1997) was a
Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
Eurasian model and writer. After garnering fame as a model, she gained recognition for her contributions to Singaporean post-colonial literature and for the anthropic philosophy conveyed in her works. Her first book, ''Excuse Me, Are You A Model?'', is recognised as a significant milestone in the
literary Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays, and poems. It includes both print and digital writing. In recent centuries, ...
and cultural history of Singapore.


India

One of the key issues is the superiority/inferiority of Indian Writing in English (IWE) as opposed to the literary production in the various languages of India. Key polar concepts bandied in this context are superficial/authentic, imitative/creative, shallow/deep, critical/uncritical, elitist/parochial and so on. The views of
Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...
and Amit Chaudhuri expressed through their books ''The Vintage Book of Indian Writing'' and ''The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature'' respectively essentialise this battle. Rushdie's statement in his book – "the ironic proposition that India's best writing since independence may have been done in the language of the departed imperialists is simply too much for some folks to bear" – created a lot of resentment among many writers, including writers in English. In his book, Amit Chaudhuri questions – "Can it be true that Indian writing, that endlessly rich, complex and problematic entity, is to be represented by a handful of writers who write in English, who live in England or America and whom one might have met at a party?" Chaudhuri feels that after Rushdie, Indian writing in English started employing
magical realism Magical realism, magic realism, or marvelous realism is a style or genre of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between speculation and reality. ''Magical rea ...
, bagginess, non-linear narrative and hybrid language to sustain themes seen as microcosms of India and supposedly reflecting Indian conditions. He contrasts this with the works of earlier writers such as R. K. Narayan where the use of English is pure, but the deciphering of meaning needs cultural familiarity. He also feels that Indian is a theme constructed only in IWE and does not articulate itself in the
vernacular literature Vernacular literature is literature written in the vernacular—the speech of the "common people". In the European tradition, this effectively means literature not written in Latin or Koine Greek. In this context, vernacular literature appeared ...
. He further adds "the post-colonial novel, becomes a trope for an ideal hybrid by which the West celebrates not so much Indian, whatever that infinitely complex thing is, but its own historical quest, its reinterpretation of itself". Some of these arguments form an integral part of what is called
postcolonial theory Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and th ...
. The very categorisation of IWE – as IWE or under post-colonial literature – is seen by some as limiting. Amitav Ghosh made his views on this very clear by refusing to accept the Eurasian Commonwealth Writers Prize for his book '' The Glass Palace'' in 2001 and withdrawing it from the subsequent stage. Indian authors like Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Hanif Kureishi, Rohinton Mistry, Meena Alexander,
Arundhati Roy Suzanna Arundhati Roy (; born 24 November 1961) is an Indian author best known for her novel ''The God of Small Things'' (1997), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. ...
and Kiran Desai have written about their postcolonial experiences. The Hungry Generation was a literary movement in the Bengali language launched by what is known today as the "Hungryalist quartet", ''i.e.''
Shakti Chattopadhyay Shakti Chattopadhyay (25 November 1933 – 23 March 1995) was an Indian poet and writer who wrote in Bengali. He is known for his realistic depictions of rural life. He was a green poet, many of his poems raised the issue of nature in crisis. ...
,
Malay Roy Choudhury Malay Roy Choudhury (29 October 1939 – 26 October 2023) was an Indian Bengali poet, playwright, short story writer, essayist and novelist who founded the Hungryalist movement in the 1960s. Early life and education Malay Roy Choudhury was ...
, Samir Roychoudhury and Debi Roy (alias Haradhon Dhara), during the 1960s in
Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...
, India. Due to their involvement in this avant garde cultural movement, the leaders lost their jobs and were jailed by the incumbent government. They challenged contemporary ideas about literature and contributed significantly to the evolution of the language and idiom used by contemporaneous artists to express their feelings in literature and painting.
Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh FKC (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write '' Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 ( ...
(1915-2014) has written numerous fiction and non-fiction novels about the India-Pakistan Partition. Nissim Ezekiel (1924–2004) was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English. Mahashweta Devi (1926–2016)Detailed Biography
''
Ramon Magsaysay Award The Ramon Magsaysay Award (Filipino language, Filipino: ''Gawad Ramon Magsaysay'') is an annual award established to perpetuate former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay's example of integrity in governance, courageous service to the people, ...
''.
is an Indian social activist and writer. Urvashi Butalia's ''The Other Side of Silence'' is a collection of oral histories and testimonies about the India-Pakistan Partition.


Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
n writers like Nihal De Silva and Carl Muller write about the post-colonial situation and the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. Notably authors such as the D.C.R.A Goonetilleke in Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan People 1917-2003 targets the evolution of Sri Lankan English Literature specifically in regards to the acceptance of the English language and other major controversies of the time in Sri Lankan literature, after its Independence from the British Empire in 1948.


Bangladesh

Selim Al Deen from Bangladesh has also written postcolonial drama.


Europe


Britain

The novels of J. G. Farrell are important texts dealing with the decline of the
British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
. Farrell's novel '' Troubles'', set during the
Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence (), also known as the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922), Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and Unite ...
(1919–1921), is the first instalment in Farrell's "Empire Trilogy", preceding '' The Siege of Krishnapur'' and '' The Singapore Grip'', all written during the 1970s. Although there are similar themes within the three novels (most notably that of the British Empire), they do not form a sequence of storytelling. ''The Siege of Krishnapur'' was inspired by events such as the sieges of Cawnpore and
Lucknow Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...
, and details the siege of a fictional Indian town, Krishnapur, during the
Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against Company rule in India, the rule of the East India Company, British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the The Crown, British ...
from the perspective of the city's British residents. ''The Singapore Grip'' is
satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
book about events following Japan's entry into the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and occupation of Singapore. The story centres on a British family who own one of the colony's leading trading companies. Novelist E. M. Forster's '' A Passage to India'' (1924) takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the
British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...
. Forster connects personal relationships with the politics of colonialism through the story of the Englishwoman Adela Quested, the Indian Dr. Aziz, and the question of what did or did not happen between them in the Marabar Caves. '' The Raj Quartet'' a four-volume novel sequence, written by Paul Scott, also deals with the subject of British colonial rule in India, in this case the concluding years of the British Raj. The series was written during the period 1965–1975. ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
'' called it "one of the most important landmarks of post-war fiction." The story of ''The Raj Quartet'' begins in 1942. World War II is at its zenith, and in
South East Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
, the Allied forces have suffered great losses.
Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...
has been captured by Japan, and the Japanese invasion of the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...
from the east appears imminent. The year 1942 is also marked by Indian nationalist leader
Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...
's call for the Quit India movement to the British colonial government. ''The Raj Quartet'' is set in this tumultuous background for the British soldiers and civilians stationed in India who have a duty to manage this part of the British Empire. One recurrent theme is the moral certainty of the older generation as contrasted with the
anomie In sociology, anomie or anomy () is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes b ...
of the younger. Another theme is the treatment of Indians by Britons living in India. As a reflection of these themes. the British characters let themselves be "trapped by codes and principles, which were in part to keep their own fears and doubts at bay." '' An Outpost of Progress'' and ''
Heart of Darkness ''Heart of Darkness'' is an 1899 novella by Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgium, Belgian company in the African interior. Th ...
'' by Polish-British writer
Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...
are based on his experiences in the
Congo Free State The Congo Free State, also known as the Independent State of the Congo (), was a large Sovereign state, state and absolute monarchy in Central Africa from 1885 to 1908. It was privately owned by Leopold II of Belgium, King Leopold II, the const ...
. There is also '' The Congo Diary and Other Uncollected Pieces''.


Wales

Wales was gradually annexed by the
Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the late 9th century, when it was unified from various Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland to f ...
during the Middle Ages, and was fully incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century, and Welsh nationalism grew during the 20th century. The Welsh nationalist party,
Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; , ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, and often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left, Welsh nationalist list of political parties in Wales, political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from th ...
, was formed in 1925 and the
Welsh Language Society The Welsh Language Society (, also often abbreviated to Cymdeithas yr Iaith or just Cymdeithas in English) is a direct action pressure group in Wales campaigning for the right of Welsh people to use the Welsh language in every aspect of their l ...
in 1962. Welsh poet, novelist and dramatist Saunders Lewis, who was a prominent support of nationalism in Wales, rejected the possibility of Anglo-Welsh literature due to the language's status as the official tongue of the British state, affirming that "the literature which people called Anglo-Welsh was indistinguishable from English literature". Saunders Lewis was himself born in
Wallasey Wallasey () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is at the mouth of the River Mersey, on the north-eastern corner of the Wirral Peninsula. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic county bou ...
in England to a Welsh-speaking family. The attitude of the post-war generation of Welsh writers in English towards Wales differs from the previous generation, in that they were more sympathetic to Welsh nationalism and to the
Welsh language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic languages, Celtic language of the Brittonic languages, Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales by about 18% of the population, by some in England, and in (the Welsh c ...
. The change can be linked to the nationalist fervour generated by Saunders Lewis and the burning of the Bombing School on the Lleyn Peninsula in 1936, along with a sense of crisis generated by the Second World War. In poetry R. S. Thomas (1913–2000) was the most important figure throughout the second half of the 20th century, beginning with ''The Stones of the Field'' in 1946 and concluding with ''No Truce with the Furies'' (1995). While he "did not learn the Welsh language until he was 30 and wrote all his poems in English",''Los Angeles Times'', "Obituary", September 27, 2000 he wanted the Welsh language to be made the official language of Wales, and the policy of Anglo-Welsh bilingualism abolished. He wrote his autobiography in Welsh, but said he lacked the necessary grasp of the language to employ it in his poems. Although an Anglican priest, he was a fervent nationalist and advocated
boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...
s against English owners of holiday homes in Wales. As an admirer of Saunders Lewis, Thomas defended his need to use English: "Since there is in Wales a mother tongue that continues to flourish, a proper Welshman can only look on English as a means of rekindling interest in the Welsh language, and of leading people back to the mother tongue." With the creation the
National Assembly for Wales The Senedd ( ; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, Its role is to scrutinise the Welsh Government and legislate on devolve ...
, under the
Government of Wales Act 1998 A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
, Wales now has more local autonomy from the central government in London. The
Welsh Language Act 1993 The Welsh Language Act 1993 (c. 38) () is an Act of Parliament, Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which put the Welsh language on an equal footing with the English language in Wales. Act Background After the S4C, Welsh language c ...
and the
Government of Wales Act 1998 A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...
provide that the English and Welsh languages be treated on a basis of equality. English is spoken by almost all people in Wales and is the ''de facto'' main language. Northern and western Wales retain many areas where Welsh is spoken as a first language by the majority of the population, and English learnt as a second language. The 2011 Census showed 562,016 people, 19.0% of the Welsh population, were able to speak Welsh.


Ireland

The English language was introduced to
Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
in the 13th century, following the
Norman Conquest of Ireland The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland took place during the late 12th century, when Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land in Ireland over which the monarchs of England then claimed sovereignty. The Anglo-Normans ...
. However, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to plantation of Ireland. In the 1690s, the Protestant
Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...
started to become dominant over the Catholic majority, which was extended during the 18th century. The
Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...
, however, remained the dominant language of Irish literature down to the 19th century, despite a slow decline which began in the 17th century with the expansion of English control in Ireland. The 17th century saw the tightening of English control over Ireland and the suppression of the Irish aristocracy. This meant that the literary class lost its patrons, since the new nobility were English speakers with little interest for the older culture. The elaborate classical metres lost their dominance and were largely replaced by more popular forms. This was an age of social and political tension, as expressed by the poet Dáibhí Ó Bruadair and the anonymous authors of '' Pairliment Chloinne Tomáis'', a prose satire on the aspirations of the lower classes. Prose of another sort was represented by the historical works of Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn) and the compilation known as the ''
Annals of the Four Masters The ''Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland'' () or the ''Annals of the Four Masters'' () are chronicles of Middle Ages, medieval Irish history. The entries span from the Genesis flood narrative, Deluge, dated as 2,242 Anno Mundi, years after crea ...
''. The consequences of these changes were seen in the 18th century. Poetry was still the dominant literary medium and its practitioners were poor scholars, often educated in the classics at local schools and schoolmasters by trade. Such writers produced polished work in popular metres for a local audience. This was particularly the case in Munster, in the south-west of Ireland, and notable names included Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin and Aogán Ó Rathaille of Sliabh Luachra. A certain number of local patrons were still to be found, even in the early 19th century, and especially among the few surviving families of the Gaelic aristocracy. In the first half of the 18th century Dublin was the home of an Irish-language literary circle connected to the Ó Neachtain (Naughton) family, a group with wide-ranging Continental connections. With the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. The latter part of the 19th century saw a rapid replacement of Irish by English in the greater part of the country, though Irish was still an urban language, and continued to be so well into the 19th century. At the end of the 19th century, however, cultural nationalism displayed a new energy, marked by the
Gaelic Revival The Gaelic revival () was the late-nineteenth-century national revival of interest in the Irish language (also known as Gaelic) and Irish Gaelic culture (including folklore, mythology, sports, music, arts, etc.). Irish had diminished as a sp ...
(which encouraged a modern literature in Irish) and more generally by the Irish Literary Revival. A
war of independence Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence or wars of liberation, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) ...
in the early 20th century was followed by the partition of the island, creating the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State (6 December 192229 December 1937), also known by its Irish-language, Irish name ( , ), was a State (polity), state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-ye ...
in 1922, which became increasingly sovereign over the following decades, and Northern Ireland, which remained a part of the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
.


Poland

Clare Cavanagh believes that literature of Poland is postcolonial. Dariusz Skórczewski supports her and reveals how the experiences of foreign domination and the history of empire have shaped contemporary Polish culture and society. They both criticize Marxist basis of postcolonialism.


Romania

Postcolonial Readings of Romanian Identity Narratives
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Further reading

* * * * * * * / * * * Book: Postcolonial Literature - Kaminikanta Mohanty; CC-XIII (English Honors).


See also

* : Postcolonial literature * Postcolonial Studies * Journal of Postcolonial Writing *
Migrant literature Migrant literature, sometimes written by migrants themselves, tells stories of immigration. Settings Although any experience of migration would qualify an author to be classed under migrant literature, the main focus of recent research has been on ...
* Breton literature * Catalan literature * Colonial cinema * Caribbean literature * Caribbean poetry * Native American literature * Francophone literature * Māori poetry * TSAR Publications – a book publisher focusing on Canadian multicultural literature * Vernacular literature


References


Bibliography

* * Bhabha, Homi (1994). ''The Location of Culture'', Routledge, * Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English'', 1994, 2005. * Elleke Boehmer, ''Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors'' * Clarke, George Elliott. ''Directions Home: Approaches to African-Canadian Literature.'' University of Toronto Press, 2012. * De Gasperi, Giulia & Joseph Pivato. Eds. ''Comparative Literature for the New Century.'' McGill-Queen's U. P., 2018. * Tobias Döring, '' Postcolonial Literatures in English: An Introduction'', 2008. * * Alamgir Hashmi, ''Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-definition of a Popular/Counter Culture'', 1983. * Alamgir Hashmi, ''The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World'', 1988. * ''Chelsea 46: World Literature in English'' (1987) * ''Poetry International 7/8'' (2003–2004) * John McLeod, ''Beginning Postcolonialism'', second edition (MUP, 2010). * Gerald Moore and Ulli Beier, eds. ''Penguin Book of Modern African Poetry'' * Britta Olinde, ''A Sense of Place: Essays in Post-Colonial Literatures'' * * Prem Poddar and David Johnson, ''A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literature in English'', 2005. * * John Thieme, The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, London and New York: Arnold, 1996. * John Thieme, Postcolonial Con-Texts: Writing Back to the Canon, London and New York: Continuum, 2001. * John Thieme Post-Colonial Studies: The Essential Glossary, London and New York: Arnold, 2003. * Peter Thompson, ''Littérature moderne du monde francophone.'' Chicago: NTC (McGraw-Hill), 1997 * Jaydeep Sarangi, ''Indian Novels in English: Texts, Contexts and Language'', Authorspress, New Delhi, 2018 * ''Postcolonial Theory and the Arab–Israeli Conflict'' edited by Philip Carl Salzman and Donna Robinson Divine, Routledge (2008) *Friedman, Amy L. ''Postcolonial Satire: Indian Fiction and the Reimagining of Menippean Satire.'' Lexington, 2019.


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Postcolonial Literature Postcolonial literature,