More on Post-Colonial Writing

Just in time for the midterm, I'd like to return to this entry.  If you are going to respond to essay prompt #2, you may want to know a little more about post-colonial writers.  We've read Things Fall Apart, a pioneering example of post-colonial writing, but you may want to know what else is out there.

Let's start with some definitions of post-colonialism.  As Deepika Bahri states in her page on post-colonialism, the definition of this term is not always hard and fast.  This is good to keep in mind.

 http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html 

Even in 1998, Paul Brians had some concerns with the term:

http://www.wsu.edu:8001/~brians/anglophone/postcolonial.html

Some students at Brown University attempt to define and respond to this term:

http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/stolorow1.html
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/washburn1.html
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/yancovitz4.html
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/hander5.html
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/sarowiwa/hander6.html
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/achebe/hander7.html






For more information about the authors and books above, see the following links. I will be posting from top to bottom, starting with Buchi Emecheta, a Nigerian writer now living in the UK.

http://emeagwali.com/nigeria/biography/buchi-emecheta-voice-09jul96.html

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Emech.html

http://readallday.org/may12.html

Let's move on to Ben Okri and The Famished Road.
http://emeagwali.com/nigeria/biography/ben-okri-19jul92.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/25/ben-okri-poem-twitter

http://armenianodar.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/the-famished-road-by-ben-okri/

Wole Soyinka's The Man Died is an example of life writing.

http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/soyinka/

http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/molara-wood/072604.html

We'll conclude with Ama Ata Aidoo, a writer from Ghana.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/aidoo_life.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/aidoo_work.shtml

In addition, here is a list of some post-colonial (and colonial) writers:

http://www.literaryhistory.com/20thC/Groups/postcolonial.htm#authors

As you can see from the list, not all are African, and the list is not all inclusive.

Here is a link to Indra Publishing's list of post-colonial novels.  The publishing company is based in Australia.

http://indrabooks.com/category/theme/post-colonial-literature/






For information about the authors above, see the links below.  Let's start with Salman Rushdie. 
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rushdie.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jul/26/salmanrushdie.bookerprize

http://www.kaysbookshelf.com/2008/12/midnights-children-salman-rushdie/