Home  -  Back Issues  -  The Team  -  Contact Us
     Volume 4 Issue 57 | August 5 , 2005 |


   Letters
   Voicebox
   Chintito
   Cover Story
   News Notes
   Perspective
   Food For Thought
   Special Feature
   Impressions
   Perceptions
   Obituary
   Fiction
   Reflections
   Time Out
   Endeavour
   Jokes
   Dhaka Diary
   Education
   Sci-tech
   Techno-Files
   Book Review
   Health
   books
   New Flicks
   Write to Mita

   SWM Home


 

Books


Postcolonial Fiction

Lifting the Sentence: A poetics of Postcolonial Fiction
Robert Fraser
Manchester University Press; January 2001

Is the term "postcolonial fiction" meaningful? Is there any such thing as a postcolonial literary aesthetic? Robert Fraser's contention in this thought-provoking book is that these questions can be answered in the affirmative only if postcoloniality is interpreted, less as a condition than as a development through six specified historical phases. As the penal "sentence" of imperialism is gradually lifted, he argues, successive types of syntactical "sentence" have come into play: colonial and postcolonial grammars, distinctive uses of person, tense, mood, and form.


Colonial and Postcolonial Fiction: An Anthology
Robert L. Ross (editor)
Garland Publishing; July 1999

Fiction from the old British Commonwealth once took second place to the literature of England and the United States, but his is no longer the case. Writers from around the globe-Africa, Canada, Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, and the Caribbean-have recorded their encounters with colonialism from its beginnings to its collapse and aftermath to produce an impressive body of work that internationalizes literature in English. This anthology is organized into sets of short stories and stand-alone selections from significant novels; colonial, postcolonial, immigrant, and personal encounters are represented. Each section includes a general introduction to help readers place the works in historical and cultural perspective. Biographical and critical material is provided for each writer, along with commentary on each selection. The anthology is an appropriate textbook for courses in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies and in Literature and Cultural Studies. It will also interest general readers.


Imagining London: Postcolonial Fiction and the Transnational Metropolis
John Clement Ball
University of Toronto Press; June 2004

John Clement Ball skillfully weaves together key themes from cultural geography, sociology, literary theory, postcolonial studies and political science to provide an artful reading of classic texts and newer texts alike. This promising work shows that Ball could easily be a prominent figure in his field. The introduction provides an excellent survey of the development of postcolonialism. Ball discusses many of the major trends and theorists, and how their works fit into the new directions postcolonial theory is taking.
The remainder of the book is a carefully detailed examination of the position of London--actual or symbolic--in postcolonial literature, and the implications of London in a transnational framework. Any student of recent trends in postcolonial theory should check this book out. Anyone else who is interested in seeing what the field is about will welcome the unpretentious language and the fact that Ball takes the time to define whatever jargon he uses in clear terms.

(Source: ETC, Gulshan 1, Dhaka)

Compiled by: Sanyat Sattar

 

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2005