Postcolonial literature is the
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
by people from formerly
colonized
Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
countries. It exists on all
continent
A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas t ...
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, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
.
Postcolonial
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a ...
literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the
decolonization
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and themes such as
racialism and
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
. A range of
literary theory 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 professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
refers to as
cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural colonialism) comprises the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" often describes practices in which a social entity engages culture (including language, traditions, ...
.
Migrant literature
Migrant literature is either written by migrants or tells the stories of migrants and their migration. It is a topic of growing interest within literary studies since the 1980s. Migrants are people who have left their homes and cultural settings an ...
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 a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colony, colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose the ...
began and when it has ended (with numerous scholars contending that it has not). However, the majority of scholars have agreed that the term "postcolonial" designates an era "after" colonialism has ended. The contention has been influenced by the
history of colonialism, which is commonly divided into several major phases; the
European colonization of the Americas
During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short t ...
began in the 15th century and lasted until the 19th, while the
colonisation of Africa
The history of external colonisation of Africa can be dated back from ancient, medieval, or modern history, depending on how the term colonisation is defined.
Ancient Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Malays all established colonies on the African co ...
and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
when anti-colonial independence movements led to the
decolonization of Africa
The decolonisation of Africa was a process that took place in the mid-to-late 1950s to 1975 during the Cold War, with radical government changes on the continent as colonial governments made the transition to independent states. The process w ...
,
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
and
the Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
. Historians have also expressed differing opinions in regards to the postcolonial status of nations established through
settler colonialism
Settler colonialism is a structure that perpetuates the elimination of Indigenous people and cultures to replace them with a settler society. Some, but not all, scholars argue that settler colonialism is inherently genocidal. It may be enacted ...
, such as the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Australia and
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. Ongoing
neocolonialism
Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, ...
in the
Global South 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 it's 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, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
. 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 conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
. However, the succeeding generation of postcolonial critics, many of whom belonged to the
post-structuralist
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...
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 A ...
or
Canadian literature
Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both g ...
; 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 have, however, 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, either by modifying or by subverting it, or both.
Postcolonial
literary theory 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'' (1978),
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
analyzed the fiction of
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly , ; born Honoré Balzac;Jean-Louis Dega, La vie prodigieuse de Bernard-François Balssa, père d'Honoré de Balzac : Aux sources historiques de La Comédie humaine, Rodez, Subervie, 1998, 665 p. 20 May 179 ...
,
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticism inherited ...
, 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 Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
professor
Homi K. Bhabha
Homi Kharshedji Bhabha (; born 1 November 1949) is an Indian-British scholar and critical theorist. He is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary post ...
, (born 1949). He has developed a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as
hybridity,
third-space,
mimicry,
difference
Difference, The Difference, Differences or Differently may refer to:
Music
* ''Difference'' (album), by Dreamtale, 2005
* ''Differently'' (album), by Cassie Davis, 2009
** "Differently" (song), by Cassie Davis, 2009
* ''The Difference'' (al ...
, and
ambivalence Ambivalence is a state of having simultaneous conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings towards some object. Stated another way, ambivalence is the experience of having an attitude towards someone or something that contains both positively and neg ...
.
[Huddart, David. "Homi K. Bhabha", Routledge Critical Thinkers, 2006] Western canonical works like
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 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,''
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
'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 first ...
,''
Jane Austen's ''
Mansfield Park,''
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.
...
's ''
Kim
Kim or KIM may refer to:
Names
* Kim (given name)
* Kim (surname)
** Kim (Korean surname)
*** Kim family (disambiguation), several dynasties
**** Kim family (North Korea), the rulers of North Korea since Kim Il-sung in 1948
** Kim, Vietnamese f ...
,'' and
Joseph Conrad's ''
Heart of Darkness'' 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
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
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, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African ...
'',
pan-Africanism
Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...
and
postcolonial feminism were forged in and promulgated through literature.
Prominent theorists include
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...
,
Bill Ashcroft,
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist". His wo ...
,
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and '' magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies ...
,
Leela Gandhi,
Gareth Griffiths,
Abiola Irele
Francis Abiola Irele (commonly Abiola Irele, 22 May 1936 – 2 July 2017) was a Nigerian academic best known as the doyen of Africanist literary scholars worldwide. He was Provost at Kwara State University, founded in 2009 in Ilorin, Nigeria. Befo ...
,
John McLeod,
Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi ( fa, حمید دباشی; born 1951) is an Iranian-American professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York City.
He is the author of over twenty books. Among them are ''Theology of Disc ...
,
Helen Tiffin,
Khal Torabully, and
Robert J. C. Young.
Nationalism
The sense of identification with a nation, or
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
, 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 to 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 print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
, newspapers and magazines helped people across geographical barriers identify with a shared national community. This idea of the
nation
A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective Identity (social science), identity of a group of people unde ...
as a homogeneous
imagined community 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-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
'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, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African ...
'' is a literary and ideological philosophy, developed by francophone African
intellectuals
An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or as ...
, 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. He was "one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature" and coined the word in French. He founded the Par ...
,
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor (; ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist who was the first president of Senegal (1960–80).
Ideologically an African socialist, he was the major theoretician o ...
(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 worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...
was a movement among English-speaking black intellectuals who echoed the principles négritude.
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...
(1925–1961), a
Martinique
Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...
-born
Afro-Caribbean 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, and
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
. As an intellectual, Fanon was a
political radical and
Marxist humanist concerned with the
psychopathology of colonization, and the human, social, and cultural consequences of
decolonization
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
.
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'' (14th ...
. He founded the
Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).
He also founded the
Black Star Line
The Black Star Line (1919−1922) was a shipping line incorporated by Marcus Garvey, the organizer of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and other members of the UNIA. The shipping line was created to facilitate the transportation ...
, a shipping and passenger line which promoted the return of the
African diaspora to their ancestral lands. Prior to the 20th century, leaders such as
Prince Hall,
Martin Delany
Martin Robison Delany (May 6, 1812January 24, 1885) was an abolitionist, journalist, physician, soldier, and writer, and arguably the first proponent of black nationalism. Delany is credited with the Pan-African slogan of "Africa for Africans."
...
,
Edward Wilmot Blyden
Edward Wilmot Blyden (3 August 1832 – 7 February 1912) was a Liberian educator, writer, diplomat, and politician who was primarily active in West Africa. Born in the Danish West Indies, he joined the waves of black immigrants from the ...
, and
Henry Highland Garnet
Henry Highland Garnet (December 23, 1815 – February 13, 1882) was an African-American abolitionist, minister, educator and orator. Having escaped as a child from slavery in Maryland with his family, he grew up in New York City. He was educat ...
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
Garveyism is an aspect of black nationalism that refers to the economic, racial and political policies of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey. The ideology of Garveyism centers on the unification and empowerment of African-descended men, women and ...
.
Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of ''African Redemption'', Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the
Nation of Islam to the
Rastafari 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), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...
argued for a national literature aimed at achieving national liberation.
Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy (born 16 February 1956) is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College, London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 ...
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
Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel c ...
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
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack
* ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
.
["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
In a 1991 keynote address to the Modern Language Association titled "Arts of the Contact Zone", Mary Louise Pratt introduced the concept of "the contact zone." She articulated, "I use this term to refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash ...
and
transculturation
Transculturation is a term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in 1940 (from the article Our America by José Martí) to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures. Transculturation encompasses more than transition from ...
, 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 emerged as a response to the
Eurocentric
Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism)
is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...
focus of
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
. 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 over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
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, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...
'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
Nawal El Saadawi ( ar, نوال السعداوي, , 22 October 1931 – 21 March 2021) was an Egyptian feminist writer, activist and physician. She wrote many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of ...
's
The Fall of the Iman about the lynching of women,
Chimamanda Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ( ; born 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She was described in ''The Times Literary Supplement'' as "the most prominent" of a "procession of criticall ...
's ''
Half of a Yellow Sun'' 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) ''and United States of Banana'' (2011).
Braschi writes cross-genr ...
's
United States of Banana which declares the independence of Puerto Rico.
Other major voices include
Maryse Condé
Maryse Condé (née Boucolon; February 11, 1937) is a French novelist, critic, and playwright from the French Overseas department and region of Guadeloupe. Condé is best known for her novel ''Ségou'' (1984–85).Condé, Maryse, and Richard ...
,
Fatou Diome
Fatou Diome (born 1968 in Niodior) is a France, French-Senegal, Senegalese writer known for her best-selling novel ''The Belly of the Atlantic'', which was published in 2001. Her work explores immigrant life in France, and the relationship betwee ...
, and
Marie NDiaye.
Postcolonial feminist cultural theorists include
Rey Chow
Rey Chow (born 1957) is a cultural critic, specializing in 20th-century Chinese fiction and film and postcolonial theory. Educated in Hong Kong and the United States, she has taught at several major American universities, including Brown Univ ...
,
Maria Lugones,
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and
Trinh T. Minh-ha.
Pacific Islands
The ''
Pacific Islands'' comprise 20,000 to 30,000
island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
s in the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
. 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 geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
.
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, 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,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
's first published
Māori novelist,
and
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); ...
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
Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...
''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 or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
(
Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander
Torres Strait Islanders () are the Indigenous Melanesian people of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often groupe ...
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
William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651; died March 1715) was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnav ...
wrote of the "natives of
New Holland" as being "barbarous savages", but by the time of Captain
James Cook and
First Fleet marine
Watkin Tench
Lieutenant General Watkin Tench (6 October 1758 – 7 May 1833) was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first European settlement in Australia in ...
(the era of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
), 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 language groups across Australia in their ceremonies. Aboriginal spirituality includes ...
written by the
South Australian missionary
George Taplin
George Taplin (24 August 1831 – 24 June 1879) was a Congregationalist minister who worked in Aboriginal missions in South Australia, and gained a reputation as an anthropologist, writing on Ngarrindjeri lore and customs.
History
Taplin was bo ...
,
David Unaipon
David Ngunaitponi (28 September 1872 – 7 February 1967), known as David Unaipon, was an Aboriginal Australian man of the Ngarrindjeri people. He was a preacher, inventor and author. Unaipon's contribution to Australian society helped to bre ...
(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
Oodgeroo Noonuccal ( ; born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, later Kath Walker (3 November 192016 September 1993) was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for ...
(born Kath Walker, 1920–1995) was an Australian poet, political activist, artist and educator. She was also a campaigner for
Aboriginal rights
Indigenous rights are those rights that exist in recognition of the specific condition of the Indigenous peoples. This includes not only the most basic human rights of physical survival and integrity, but also the rights over their land (inc ...
.
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.
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
Kim Scott (born 18 February 1957) is an Australian novelist of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. He is a descendant of the Noongar people of Western Australia.
Biography
Scott was born in Perth in 1957 and is the eldest of four siblings with a ...
,
Alexis Wright
Alexis Wright (born 25 November 1950) is a Waanyi (Aboriginal Australian) writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel '' Carpentaria'' and the 2018 Stella Prize for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" ...
,
Kate Howarth,
Tara June Winch, in poetry
Yvette Holt
Yvette Henry Holt (born 1971) is an Aboriginal Australian poet, essayist, academic, researcher and comedian, of the Bidjara, Yiman and Wakaman nations of Queensland. She came to prominence with her first published collection of poetry, ''Anonym ...
and in popular fiction
Anita Heiss
Anita Marianne Heiss (born 1968) is an Aboriginal Australian author, poet, cultural activist and social commentator. She is an advocate for Indigenous Australian literature and literacy, through her writing for adults and children and her mem ...
.
Indigenous authors who have won Australia's high prestige
Miles Franklin Award include Kim Scott who was joint winner (with
Thea Astley
Thea Beatrice May Astley (25 August 1925 – 17 August 2004) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She was a prolific writer who was published for over 40 years from 1958. At the time of her death, she had won more Miles Franklin ...
) 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 or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
,
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
and
building construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...
by
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
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
Judith Arundell Wright (31 May 191525 June 2000) was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.
Biography
Judith Wright was born in Armidale, New So ...
, ''
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 su ...
'' by
Thomas Keneally, ''Ilbarana'' by
Donald Stuart, and the short story by
David Malouf
David George Joseph Malouf AO (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University of Que ...
: "The Only Speaker of his Tongue".
Africa
Amadou Hampâté Bâ
Amadou Hampâté Bâ ( ff, 𞤀𞤸𞤥𞤢𞤣𞤵 𞤖𞤢𞤥𞤨𞤢𞥄𞤼𞤫 𞤄𞤢𞥄, Ahmadu Hampaate Baa, 1900/1901 – 15 May 1991) was a Malian writer, historian and ethnologist. He was an influential figure in twentieth-cent ...
(1901–1991), a
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...
an writer and ethnologist, and
Ayi Kwei Armah (born 1939) from
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
, 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'' ( ar, موسم الهجرة إلى الشمال ) is a classic postcolonial Arabic novel by the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, published in 1966; it is the novel for which he is best known. It was first publi ...
'' by
Tayib Salih from the
Sudan.
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) from
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked 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 kno ...
, now
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
, 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 in 2007.
Yvonne Vera (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
Tsitsi Dangarembga (born 4 February 1959) is a Zimbabwean novelist, playwright and filmmaker. Her debut novel, '' Nervous Conditions'' (1988), which was the first to be published in English by a Black woman from Zimbabwe, was named by the BBC i ...
(born 1959) is a notable Zimbabwean author and filmmaker.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist". His wo ...
(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''.
Bate Besong (1954–2007) was a
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
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
Chinua Achebe (; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as the dominant figure of modern African literature. His first novel and '' magnum opus'', ''Things Fall Apart'' (1958), occupies ...
(1930–2013) gained worldwide attention for ''
Things Fall Apart
''Things Fall Apart'' is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958. It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the invasion by Europeans during the late 19th century. It is seen as the ...
'' 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 as "a thoroughgoing racist". A titled Igbo
chieftain
A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom.
Tribe
The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia.
Tribal societies are sometimes categorized a ...
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
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...
(born 1934) is a playwright and poet, who was awarded the 1986
Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honored in that category. Soyinka was born into a
Yoruba family in
Abeokuta
Abeokuta is the capital city of Ogun State in southwest Nigeria. It is situated on the east bank of the Ogun River, near a group of rocky outcrops in a wooded savanna; north of Lagos by railway, or by water. , Abeokuta and the surrounding a ...
. After studying in
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
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 non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England ...
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 Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence ...
, he was arrested by the federal government of General
Yakubu Gowon
Yakubu Dan-Yumma 'Jack' Gowon (born 19 October 1934) is a retired Nigerian Army general and military leader. As Head of State of Nigeria, Gowon presided over a controversial Nigerian Civil War and delivered the famous "no victor, no vanquishe ...
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
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the Z ...
regime in
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
. 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 15 September 1977) is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She was described in ''The Times Literary Supplement'' as "the most prominent" of a "procession of criticall ...
(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 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 incorporate mecha ...
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, o ...
'' (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 Professor Gerrit Olivier is a South African academic and diplomat. In 1991, he became the first diplomatic representative of South Africa to the Soviet Union and in 1992 he was appointed as the first South African Ambassador to the Russian Federatio ...
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: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
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 language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, English,
Zulu,
Xhosa
Xhosa may refer to:
* Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa
* Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people
See als ...
,
Sotho,
Pedi,
Tswana
Tswana may refer to:
* Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions
* Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people
* Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...
,
Venda
Venda () was a Bantustan in northern South Africa, which is fairly close to the South African border with Zimbabwe to the north, while to the south and east, it shared a long border with another black homeland, Gazankulu. It is now part of the ...
,
SiSwati
The Swazi or siSwati language is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Eswatini and South Africa by the Swati people. The number of speakers is estimated to be in the region of 2.4 million. The language is taught in Eswatini and s ...
,
Tsonga, 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
NATAL or Natal may refer to:
Places
* Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil
* Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa
** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843)
** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...
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,
Nadine Gordimer,
J. M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in ...
, and
Wilbur Smith
Wilbur Addison Smith (9 January 1933 – 13 November 2021) was a Zambian-born British-South African novelist specialising in historical fiction about international involvement in Southern Africa across four centuries, seen from the viewpoints ...
.
André Brink has written in both Afrikaans and English while
Breyten Breytenbach
Breyten Breytenbach (; born 16 September 1939) is a South African writer, poet and painter known for his opposition to apartheid, and consequent imprisonment by the South African government. He is informally considered as the national poet lau ...
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
Knysna () is a town with 76,150 inhabitants (2019 mid-year estimates) in the Western Cape province of South Africa. and is one of the destinations on the loosely defined Garden Route tourist route. It lies at 34° 2' 6.3168'' S and 23° 2' 47. ...
, 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
Maryse Condé (née Boucolon; February 11, 1937) is a French novelist, critic, and playwright from the French Overseas department and region of Guadeloupe. Condé is best known for her novel ''Ségou'' (1984–85).Condé, Maryse, and Richard ...
(born 1937) is a French (
Guadeloupean) author of
historical fiction, best known for her novel ''Segu'' (1984–1985).
West Indies
The term "
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
" first began to achieve wide currency in the 1950s, when writers such as
,
John Edgar Colwell Hearne,
Edgar Mittelholzer,
V.S. Naipaul, and
George Lamming
George William Lamming OCC (8 June 19274 June 2022) was a Barbadian novelist, essayist, and poet. He first won critical acclaim for ''In the Castle of My Skin'', his 1953 debut novel. He also held academic posts, including as a distinguished v ...
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
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'', which featured stories and poems written by West Indian authors, recorded in London under the direction of producer
, and broadcast back to the islands. Magazines such as ''
'' 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
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,
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 "
. The various local variations in the
. 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
– and the standard form of the language. Two West Indian writers have won the
(1992), born in St. Lucia, resident mostly in Trinidad during the 1960s and '70s, and partly in the United States since then; and
since the 1950. (
. In more recent times, a number of literary voices have emerged from the Caribbean as well as the Caribbean diaspora, including Kittitian
'', the unpublished screenplay "Dead Men", and the short story "Under Cover of Darkness"), Antiguan
from St. Maarten/St. Martin.
The most famous writer from the island of
''. The novel deals with themes of women living in a
. On 5 November 2019, ''
. The novel has been adapted for stage, film and radio numerous times, most recently as a radio play by
.
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
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."
'' addresses the Western perspective on China and the French as well as the American perspectives on
. It was inspired by
author who has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese immigrants living in the United States.
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."
author. Lahiri's debut short story collection ''
.
have been discriminated against and subject to racist attitudes. This experience inspired some Black writers, at least during the early years of
, to prove they were the equals of European-American authors. As
, 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."
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,
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".
immigrants' experiences in the United States and the Puerto Rican battle with Spanish and American colonialism.
is a post-colonial writer who dealt with themes of identity-seeking through her
-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
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,
has promoted the study of ethnic minority authors with ''Comparative Literature for the New Century'' (2018). Eds. Giulia De Gasperi & Joseph Pivato.
during the Imperial Japanese army before and during World War II.
Major figures in the postcolonial literature of the Middle East included Egyptian novelist
. Said published his most famous work, ''
. Mahfouz was inspired to write in a large part by his experiences during the
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.
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 ''
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.
. Notable authors include
.
). Much of the postcolonial literature of this genre is written by Dutch Eurasians known as
. Important authors that have been translated to English include,
.
model and writer. After garnering fame as a model, she gained recognition for her contributions to Singaporean post-colonial literature and for the