From the Margins of Empire : Christina Stead, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer / Louise Yelin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yelin, Louise, author.

Series:

Reading women writing.

Reading Women Writing

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gordimer, Nadine--Criticism and interpretation.

Stead, Christina, 1902-1983--Criticism and interpretation.

Lessing, Doris, 1919-2013--Criticism and interpretation.

Imperialism in literature.

Decolonization in literature.

National characteristics, British, in literature.

Women and literature--English-speaking countries--History--20th century.

Women and literature.

Commonwealth literature (English)--Women authors--History and criticism.

Commonwealth literature (English).

Australia--In literature.

Australia.

South Africa--In literature.

South Africa.

Great Britain--In literature.

Great Britain.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 197 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Situated at the intersection of the colonial and the postcolonial, the modern and the postmodern, the novelists Christina Stead, Doris Lessing, and Nadine Gordimer all bear witness to this century's global transformations. From the Margins of Empire looks at how the question of national identity is constructed in their writings. These authors-white women who were born or grew up in British colonies or former colonies-reflect the subject of national identity in vastly different ways in both their lives and their work. Stead, who resided outside of her native Australia, has an unsettled identity. Lessing, who grew up in southern Rhodesia and migrated to England, is or has become English. Gordimer, who was born in South Africa and remains there, considers herself South African. Louise Yelin shows how the three writers' different national identities are inscribed in their fiction. The invented, hybrid character of nationality is, she maintains, a constant throughout. Locating the writings of Stead, Lessing, and Gordimer in the national cultures that produced and read them, she considers the questions they raise about the roles that whites, especially white women, can play in the new political and cultural order.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: From the Margins of Empire

Part I: Christina Stead: Buffoon Odyssey?

1. Unsettling Australia: The Man Who Loved Children as National Family Romance

2. "Buffoon Odyssey"?: For Love Alone and the Writing of Exile

Part II. Doris Lessing: In Pursuit of the English

3. The Englishing of Doris Lessing

4. 'Integrated with British Life at Its Roots": The Construction of British Identity in The Golden Notebook

5. Reading Doris Lessing with Margaret Thatcher: The Good Terrorist, The Fifth Child, and England in the 1980s

Part III. Nadine Gordimer: Literature and Politics in South Africa

6. European Genealogies and South African Identity in Burger's Daughter

7. Decolonizing the Novel: A Sport of Nature as Postcolonial Picaresque

8. Beyond Identity: The Poetics of Nonracialism and the Politics of Cultural Translation in My Son's Story

Conclusion: Writing beyond the Margins

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [175]-191) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Sep 2019)

ISBN:

9781501711435

1501711431

OCLC:

1080550483