Postcolonial realism and the concept of the political / Eli Park Sorensen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sorensen, Eli Park, 1979- author.

Series:

Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Realism in literature.

Postcolonialism in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (205 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York, New York ; London, England : Routledge, [2021]

Summary:

"As the scholarly world attunes itself once again to the specifically political, this book rethinks the political significance of literary realism within a postcolonial context. Generally, postcolonial studies have either ignored realism or criticized it as being naïve, anachronistic, deceptive, or complicit with colonial discourse, in other words - incongruous with the postcolonial. This book argues that postcolonial realism is intimately connected to the specifically political in the sense that realist form is premised on the idea of a collective reality. Discussing a range of literary and theoretical works, Dr. Sorensen exemplifies that many postcolonial writers were often faced with the realities of an unstable state, a divided community inhabiting a contested social space, the challenges of constructing a notion of 'the people,' often out of a myriad of local communities with different traditions and languages brought together arbitrarily through colonization. The book demonstrates that the political context of realism is the sphere or possibility of civil war, divided societies, and unstable communities. Postcolonial realism is prompted by disturbing political circumstances and it gestures toward a commonly imagined world, precisely because such a notion is under pressure or absent"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Postcolonial studies and the end of history

Nation, nationalism and the novel form

The historico-political discourse

The political significance of literary realism

Postcolonial realism

The politics of realism : Rohinton Mistry's Such a long journey.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-00-312774-6

1-003-12774-6

1-000-38197-8

9781003127741

OCLC:

1241446583