Reading Postcolonial Theory

This book is an essential introduction to significant texts in postcolonial theory. It looks at seminal works in the 'moments of their making' and delineates the different threads that bind postcolonial studies. Each chapter presents a comprehensive discussion of a major text and contextualises it in the wake of contemporary themes and debates. The volume:

• Studies major texts by foremost scholars - Edward W. Said, Chinua Achebe, Albert Memmi, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Carter, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Ashis Nandy, Robert J. C. Young, Ngugi wa Thiongo, and Sara Suleri

• Shifts focus from colonial experience to underlying principles of critical engagement

• Uses accessible, jargon-free language

Focused, engaging and critically insightful, this book will be indispensable to students and scholars of literary and cultural studies, comparative literature, and postcolonial studies.

Preface Introduction 1. Albert Memmi: The Colonizer and the Colonized - Albert Memmi and Francophone Critical Theory 2. Frantz Fanon: The Wretched of the Earth - Fanon: Registers, Impact and the Question of Theory 3. Ngugi wa Thiongo: Decolonizing the Mind - Ngugi and the Language Question in African Literature 4. Edward W. Said: Orientalism - The Framing of the Case: Said's "Introduction" to Orientalism 5. Chinua Achebe: Home and Exile - Chinua Achebe and Modern African Writing 6. Paul Carter: The Road to Botany Bay - Land-Marked: Space, Memory, Colonization 7. Ashis Nandy: The Intimate Enemy - Ashis Nandy and Contemporary Cultural Discourse 8. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: In Other Worlds - Forms of Engagement and Cultures of Reading 9. Homi K. Bhabha: The Location of Culture - The Question of Agency: Bhabha's Postcolonial Imperative 10. Robert J. C. Young: White Mythologies - Robert Young and the Critical Context of White Mythologies 11. Sara Suleri: The Rhetoric of English India - Unreadable India: Difficulties of Mapping Nation and its Culture Bibliography Index