BBL 3211

1. NEW LITERATURES IN ENGLISH BBL 3211

2. WHAT IS “NEW LITERATURES” IN ENGLISH? The study of New Literatures in English is concerned with colonial and postcolonial writing which emerged in former British colonies such as those from Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, The Caribbean Islands, and India (native & non-native English works).

3. New English literature(s), is a body of literary writings that reacts to the discourse of colonization. • It often involves writings that deal with issues of de-colonization or the political and cultural independence of people formerly subjugated to colonial rule. • It is also a literary critique to texts that carry racist or colonial undertones.

4. WHAT OTHER NAMES ARE SYNONYMOUS TO “NEW LITERATURES”? • Commonwealth Literature/World Literature in English - K.S. Maniam, AlfianSaat • Colonial/Postcolonial Literature -Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, K.S. Maniam, AlfianSaat • Diasporic Literature -Salman Rushdie, Amy Tan, NgugiwaThiongo, Judith Ortiz Cofer

5. Approach • Postcolonial literary critics re-examine classical literature with a particular focus on the social "discourse” that shaped it. • Edward Said in his popular work Orientalism analyzes the writings of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire and Lautréamont, exploring how they were influenced, and how they helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority.

6. Postcolonial fiction writers might interact with the traditional colonial discourse by attempting to modify or subvert it. • An example of this is Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which was written as a pseudo-prequel to Charlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre. • Here, a familiar story is re-told from the perspective of an oppressed minor character. Protagonists in post-colonial writings are often found to be struggling with questions of identity, experiencing the conflict of living between the old, native world and the invasive forces of hegemony from new, dominant cultures.

7. WHAT ARE THE MAIN CONCERNS OF NEW LITERATURES IN ENGLISH? • RACE, CLASS, CASTE • NATION, WAR AND PEACE • SOCIAL CONDITION • GENDER OPPRESSION/ROLES • CHILDREN, FAMILY • MARRIAGE INSTITUTION, RELATIONSHIP • IDENTITY • CHILDHOOD, ADOLESCENCE, INITIATION • NATURE, LANDSCAPE, CITYSCAPE • SETTLERS’ EXPERIENCE • NATIVE DISPOSSESION, ALIENATION

8. Notable authors • JM Coetzee, Cyril Dabydeen, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Buchi Emecheta, Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, Bonny Hicks, Hanif Kureishi, Doris Lessing, Gabriel García Márquez, Bharati Mukherjee, VS Naipaul, Michael Ondaatje, RK Narayan, Mahashweta Devi, EM Forster, Anita Desai, Wilbur Smith, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o,, Derek Walcott, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh.

9. History: Events leading to Postcolonialism • Colonialism usually works through the use of brutal force employed by one country to exploit another community and obtain economic wealth. • Colonialism most commonly was the abuse of native people. • The post-colonial perspective emerged as a challenge to this tradition and legacy; it attempts to illegitimize the idea of establishing power through conquest.