The Postcolonial Short Story

This book puts the short story at the heart of contemporary postcolonial studies and questions what postcolonial literary criticism may be. Focusing on short fiction between 1975 and today – the period in which critical theory came to determine postcolonial studies – it argues for a sophisticated critique exemplified by the ambiguity of the form.

The present volume is a highly comprehensive assessment of the postcolonial short story since the thirty-six contributions cover most geographical areas concerned. Another important feature is that it deals not only with exclusive practitioners of the genre (Mansfield, Munro), but also with well-known novelists (Achebe, Armah, Atwood, Carey, Rushdie), so that stimulating comparisons are suggested between shorter and longer works by the same authors. In addition, the volume is of interest for the study of aspects of orality (dialect, dance rhythms, circularity and trickster figure for instance) and of the more or less conflictual relationships between the individual (character or implied author) and the community. Furthermore, the marginalized status of women emerges as another major theme, both as regards the past for white women settlers, or the present for urbanized characters, primarily in Africa and India. The reader will also have the rare pleasure of discovering Janice Kulik Keefer's “Fox,” her version of what she calls in her commentary “displaced autobiography’” or “creative non-fiction.” Lastly, an extensive bibliography on the postcolonial short story opens up further possibilities for research.

Focusing on short stories from both the former British colonies and Great Britain itself, An Anthology of Colonial and Postcolonial Short Fiction presents a fascinating cross-section of writing in English, a literature politicized by the experience of colonization. Great short stories from Ireland, Canada, the Caribbean, India, Pakistan, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand demonstrate the diversity of the postcolonial experience around the world from the late nineteenth century to the present. Also including rich background materials and thorough explanatory footnotes to help students read these stories with an informed eye, this anthology is a must for any student interested in world literature in general and postcolonial literature in particular. Book jacket.

The first study of the synergies between postcolonialism and the genre of the short story composite, Unsettling Stories considers how the form of the interconnected short story collection is well suited to expressing thematic aspects of postcolonial writing on settler terrain. Unique for its comparative considerations of American, Canadian, and Australian literature within the purview of postcolonial studies, this is also a considered study of the difficult place of the postcolonial settler subject within academic debates and literature. Close readings of work by Tim Winton, Margaret Laurence, William Faulkner, Stephen Leacock, Sherwood Anderson, Olga Masters, Scott R. Sanders, Thea Astley, Tim O’Brien and Sandra Birdsell are positioned alongside critical discussions of postcolonial theory to show how awkward affiliations of individuals to place, home, nation, culture, and history expressed in short story composites can be usefully positioned within the broader context of settler colonialism and its aftermath.

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy is an anthology of original new stories by leading African, Asian, South Asian and Aboriginal authors, as well as North American and British writers of color. Stories of imagined futures abound in Western writing. Writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson notes that the science fiction/fantasy genre “speaks so much about the experience of being alienated but contains so little writing by alienated people themselves.” It’s an oversight that Hopkinson and Mehan aim to correct with this anthology. The book depicts imagined futures from the perspectives of writers associated with what might loosely be termed the “third world.” It includes stories that are bold, imaginative, edgy; stories that are centered in the worlds of the “developing” nations; stories that dare to dream what we might develop into. The wealth of postcolonial literature has included many who have written insightfully about their pasts and presents. With So Long Been Dreaming they creatively address their futures. Contributors include: Opal Palmer Adisa, Tobias Buckell, Wayde Compton, Hiromi Goto, Andrea Hairston, Tamai Kobayashi, Karin Lowachee, devorah major, Carole McDonnell, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Eden Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh, Sheree Renee Thomas and Greg Van Eekhout. Nalo Hopkinson is the internationally-acclaimed author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk, and Salt Roads. Her books have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, and Philip K. Dick Awards; Skin Folk won a World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award. Born in Jamaica, Nalo moved to Canada when she was sixteen. She lives in Toronto. Uppinder Mehan is a scholar of science fiction and postcolonial literature. A South Asian Canadian, he currently lives in Boston and teaches at Emerson College.

The Cambridge History of the English Short Story is the first comprehensive volume to capture the literary history of the English short story. Charting the origins and generic evolution of the English short story to the present day, and written by international experts in the field, this book covers numerous transnational and historical connections between writers, modes and forms of transmission. Suitable for English literature students and scholars of the English short story generally, it will become a standard work of reference in its field.

The concepts of 'youth' and the 'postcolonial' both inhabit a liminal locus where new ways of being in the world are rehearsed and struggle for recognition against the impositions of dominant power structures. Departing from this premise, the present volume focuses on the experience of postcolonial youngsters in contemporary Britain as rendered in fiction, thus envisioning the postcolonial as a site of fruitful and potentially transformative friction between different identitary variables or sociocultural interpellations. In so doing, this volume provides varied evidence of the ability of literature—and of the short story genre, in particular—to represent and swiftly respond to a rapidly changing world as well as to the new socio-cultural realities and conflicts affecting our current global order and the generations to come. Contributors are: Isabel M. Andrés-Cuevas, Isabel Carrera-Suárez, Claire Chambers, Blanka Grzegorczyk, Bettina Jansen, Indrani Karmakar, Carmen Lara-Rallo, Laura María Lojo-Rodríguez, Noemí Pereira-Ares, Gérald Préher, Susanne Reichl, Carla Rodríguez-González, Jorge Sacido-Romero, Karima Thomas and Laura Torres-Zúñiga.

Presenting a diverse and dazzling collection from all over the continent, from Morocco to Zimbabwe, Uganda to Kenya. Helon Habila focuses on younger, newer writers - contrasted with some of their older, more established peers - to give a fascinating picture of a new and more liberated Africa. These writers are characterized by their engagement with the wider world and the opportunities offered by the end of apartheid, the end of civil wars and dictatorships, and the possibilities of free movement. Their work is inspired by travel and exile. They are liberated, global and expansive. As Dambudzo Marechera wrote: 'If you're a writer for a specific nation or specific race, then f*** you." These are the stories of a new Africa, punchy, self-confident and defiant. Includes stories by: Fatou Diome; Aminatta Forna; Manuel Rui; Patrice Nganang; Leila Aboulela; Zo Wicomb; Alaa Al Aswany; Doreen Baingana; E.C. Osondu.

Honouring strong new voices from around the world, the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize is a global award, open to unpublished as well as published writers, with a truly international judging panel. This global anthology presents the winner of the 2014 Short Story Prize, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s “Let’s Tell This Story Properly,” alongside some of the most promising and original stories entered for the prize during the past three years by emerging writers across the literary landscape of the world. Gathered from over ten thousand entries, the selected stories are provocative, rich in flair and ambition, and push the boundaries of fiction into fresh territory.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we may be in a “transnational” moment, increasingly aware of the ways in which local and national narratives, in literature and elsewhere, cannot be conceived apart from a radically new sense of shared human histories and global interdependence. To think transnationally about literature, history, and culture requires a study of the evolution of hybrid identities within nation-states and diasporic identities across national boundaries. Studies addressing issues of race, ethnicity, and empire in US culture have provided some of the most innovative and controversial contributions to recent scholarship. Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature represents a new chapter in the emerging dialogues about the importance of borders on a global scale. This book collects nineteen essays written in the 1990s in this emergent field by both well established and up-and-coming scholars. Almost all the essays have been either especially written for this volume or revised for inclusion here. These essays are accessible, well-focused resources for college and university students and their teachers, displaying both historical depth and theoretical finesse as they attempt close and lively readings. The anthology includes more than one discussion of each literary tradition associated with major racial or ethnic communities. Such a gathering of diverse, complementary, and often competing viewpoints provides a good introduction to the cultural differences and commonalities that comprise the United States today. The volume opens with two essays by the editors: first, a survey of the ideas in the individual pieces, and, second, a long essay that places current debates in US ethnicity and race studies within both the history of American studies as a whole and recent developments in postcolonial theory.