Comparative Postcolonialism In The Works Of Vs Naipaul And Toni Morrison

Comparative Postcolonialism in the Works of V.S. Naipaul and Toni Morrison: Fragmented Identities places comparative literature in a postcolonial context in order to widen its traditional scope and thereby pay greater attention to the relationship between indigenous and hegemonic cultures.

V.S. Naipaul stands as the most lionized literary mediator between First and Third World experience and is ordinarily viewed as possessing a unique authority on the subject of cross-cultural relations in the post-colonial era. In contesting this orthodox reading of his work, Nixon argues that Naipaul is more than simply an unduly influential writer. He has become a regressive Western institution, articulating a set of values that perpetuates political interests and representational modes that have their origin in the high imperial age. Nixon uses Naipaul's travel writing to probe the core theoretical issues raised by cross-cultural representation along metropolitan-periphery lines. With reference to economic theories of dependency, he critiques the vision, popularized by Naipaul, of the post-colonial world as divided between mimic and parasitic Third World nations on the one hand and, on the other, the benignly creative societies of the West.

V.S. Naipaul Is One Of The Most Celebrated Names In English Fiction Today. In His Fiction, Naipaul Presents A Subtle And Sensitive Account Of The Poignant Experiences Of The Colonized People. On The Other Hand, His Commitment To Truth Makes Him Conscious And Critical Of The Shortcomings Of Traditional Cultures As Well. This, Added To His Pessimist Vision Of The World, Makes Him A Highly Controversial Writer. The Present Study Gives A Comprehensive Account Of The Major Works Of Naipaul By Enquiring Into The Postcolonial Themes Of Alienation, Mimicry, Search For An Authentic Selfhood, Power And Freedom That Emerge From Their Reading. The Study Provides Fresh Insights By Raising Questions About Naipaul S Treatment Of Women And African Characters In His Fiction.

Based on the author's thesis (Doctoral--University of Hong Kong, 2005).

Magical realism was one of the most significant literary developments in the last century. It has become synonymous with the seductive fictions of writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Ben Okri, Jeanette Winterson and Peter Carey. However, the genre has also become known for its theoretical indeterminacy. In fact, exoticist speculation, inspired by the links between magical realist literature and the world's cultural or political margins, has thrown the category into critical disrepute. This book rescues magical realism from misreadings and misdemeanours, tracing the historical development of the literary genre and analysing an original spectrum of magical realist texts from Latin America, Africa, India, Canada, the US, the UK and Australia. It asks such questions as: How did magical realism come to take over the world? What is the nature of its allure? Also, how does the marginal status of its authors inform the genre? Does magical realism have a political agenda? This book uses postcolonial theory to investigate notions of cultural identity and post-structural theory to examine the narrative strategies of magical realism, presenting a comprehensive historical and theoretical overview of the genre and a politically urgent argument about its subversive potentialities.

Provides a new way of reading Western tragedy alongside texts from the postcolonial world so as to cross-illuminate each other.

This book is about culture and comparison. Starting with the history of the discipline of comparative literature and its forgotten relation to the positivist comparative method, it inquires into the idea of comparison in a postcolonial world. Comparison was Eurocentric by exclusion when it applied only to European literature, and Eurocentric by discrimination when it adapted evolutionary models to place European literature at the forefront of human development. This book argues that inclusiveness is not a sufficient response to postcolonial and multiculturalist challenges because it leaves the basis of equivalence unquestioned. The point is not simply to bring more objects under comparison, but rather to examine the process of comparison. The book offers a new approach to the either/or of relativism and universalism, in which comparison is either impossible or assimilatory, by focusing instead on various forms of “incommensurability”—comparisons in which there is a ground for comparison but no basis for equivalence. Each chapter develops a particular form of such cultural comparison from readings of important novelists (Joseph Conrad, Simone Schwartz-Bart), poets (Aimé Césaire, Derek Walcott), and theorists (Edouard Glissant, Jean-Luc Nancy).

Based on a study of V. S. Naipaul's postcolonial writings, this book explores the process of postcolonial subjects' special route of identification. This enables the readers to see how in our increasingly diverse and fragmented post-modern world, identity is a vibrant, complex, and highly controversial concept. The old notion of identity as a prescribed and self-sufficient entity is now replaced by identity as a plural, floating and becoming process. Min Zhou shows how postcolonial literature, among other artistic forms, is one of the most representative reflections of this floating identity.