From New National to World Literature: Essays and Reviews (Studies in World Literature)

From New National to World English Literature offers a personal perspective on the evolution of a major cultural movement that began with decolonization, continued with the assertion of African, West Indian, Commonwealth, and other literatures, and has evolved through postcolonial to world or international English literature. Bruce King, one of the pioneers in the study of the new national literatures and still an active literary critic, discusses the personalities, writers, issues, and contexts of what he considers the most important change in culture since modernism. In this selection of forty-five essays and reviews, King discusses issues such as the emergence and aesthetics of African literature, the question of the existence of a “Nigerian literature”, the place of the new universities in decolonizing culture, the contrasting models of American and Irish literatures, and the changing nature of exile and diasporas. He emphasizes themes such as traditionalism versus modernism, the dangers of cultural assertion, and the relationships between nationalism and internationalism. Special attention is given to Nigerian, West Indian, Australian, Indian, and Pakistani literature. Table of contents I. Introduction Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 How with the Help of Derry Jeffares I (an American) Became a Commonwealth Literature Specialist II. African Literature Chapter 3 Those Magical Years: The Making of Nigerian Literature at Ibadan: 1948-1966 Chapter 4 The Emergence of African Fiction Chapter 5 Thoughts on African Literature Chapter 6 African Literature and Aesthetics Chapter 7 Is There a Nigerian Literature? Chapter 8 Abioseh Nicol Chapter 9 Gabriel Okara Chapter 10 The Revised Arrow of God Chapter 11 Wole Soyinka and the Nobel Prize for Literature III. New English Literatures Chapter 12 Nationalism, Internationalism, Periodization, and Commonwealth Literature Chapter 13 Protest, Alienation and Modernism in the New Literatures Chapter 14 The Commonwealth Writer in Exile Chapter 15 Ethnicity as Response: Richler, Achebe and Naipaul IV. Australia, Canada, New Zealand Chapter 16 The Role of American Literature in Colonial and Post-Colonial Cultures Chapter 17 Canadian and New Zealand Jewish Writers: A Contrast Between Mordecai Richler and Charles Brasch Chapter 18 A.D. Hope and Australian Poetry Chapter 19 Randolph Stow’s Novels of Exile Chapter 20 Frank Moorhouse, Grand Days (1994) Chapter 21 Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing V. West Indies Chapter 22 Anand’s Recherche du Temps Perdu Chapter 23 Who Has Written Better? Chapter 24 Garth St. Omer: From Disorder to Order Chapter 25 West Indian Drama and the Rockefeller Foundation, 1957-70: Derek Walcott, The Little Carib and The University of the West Indies Chapter 26 A Witness to Culture Chapter 27 Derek Walcott’s The Bounty (1998) Chapter 28 Religion and Education in Derek Walcott’s St Lucia Chapter 29 Contextualizing Walcott Chapter 30 White Egrets, Derek Walcott (2010) VI. Internationalizing British Literature Chapter 31 Who Wrote The Satanic Verses? (1988) Chapter 32 David Dabydeen’s A Harlot’s Progress (2000) Chapter 33 Abdulrazak Gurnah and Hanif Kureishi: Failed Revolutions Chapter 34 Mike Phillips and the Making of Black British Literature VII. Indian Literature Chapter 35 Modern Indian and American Poetry: Some Contacts and Relations Chapter 36 Keki Daruwalla: Outsider, Skeptic and Poet Chapter 37 That Preface, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered Chapter 38 2004: Ezekiel, Moraes, Kolatkar Chapter 39 A Personal Moon: Adil Jussawalla Chapter 40 To Be Or Not To Be Diasporic Chapter 41 Narcopolis By Jeet Thayil VIII. Muslims and Pakistan Chapter 42 From Twilight to Midnight: Muslim Novels of India and Pakistan Chapter 43 Alamgir Hashmi’s Poetry: Pakistan, Modernity and Language Chapter 44 Jamil Ahmad, The Wandering Falcon (2011) Chapter 45 Kamila Shamsie's Novels of History, Exile and Desire Chapter 46 Dangerous Controversies Acknowledgments Index From New National to World English Literature offers a personal perspective on the evolution of a major cultural movement that began with decolonization, continued with the assertion of African, West Indian, Commonwealth, and other literatures, and has evolved through postcolonial to world or international English literature. Bruce King's extensive Introduction discusses the personalities, writers, issues, and contexts of what he considers the most important change in culture since Modernism. The Introduction also explains the forty-five essays and reviews he has selected from his publications to illustrate the development, stages, and major national literatures, authors, and themes. Special attention is given to Nigerian, West Indian, Australian, Indian, and Pakistani literature. Topics and issues include: "Derry" Jeffares organising Commonwealth and Anglo-Irish studies, the emergence and aesthetics of African literature, the question of the existence of a "Nigerian literature", the place of the new universities in decolonizing culture, the influence of the Rockefeller Foundation, the contrasting models of American and Irish literatures, ethnicity as response , the changing nature of exile and diasporas, the role of Jewish writers, minorities, Muslim objections to free speech, The Satanic Verses controversy, traditionalism versus modernism, the dangers of cultural assertion, and the relationships between nationalism and internationalism. Authors discussed include Chinua Achebe, Ahmed Ali, Margaret Atwood, David Dabydeen, K N Daruwalla, Nissim Ezekiel, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Alamgir Hashmi, Attia Hosain, A D Hope, Adil Jussawalla, Arun Kolatkar, Hanif Kureishi, Dom Moraes, Frank Moorhouse, V S Naipaul, Abioseh Nicol, Gabriel Okara, Mike Phillips, Mordechai Richler, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, Garth St Omer, Kamila Shamsie, Randolph Stow, Jeet Thayil, and Derek Walcott. Recognition and Ethics in World Literature is a critical comparative study of contemporary world literature, focused on the importance of the ethical turn (or return) in literary theory. It considers the shape and development of the ethical engagement of the novels of Amitav Ghosh, Chimamanda Adichie, Caryl Phillips, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zadie Smith, and JM Coetzee, exploring the overlaps and divergences between Levinasian/Derridean and Aristotelian ethics as they are brought to bear on literature. The characters'recognitions and emotional responses in these texts are integral to the unfolding of their ethical concerns, and the ethics thus explored is often marked by the complexity and impurity characteristic of the tragic. A view of recognition is advanced that shifts it from the more usual political understanding in the field towards seeing it as a formal device used to unfold an ethical knowledge peculiar to fictional narrative, and particularly suitable for the concerns of world literature authors in its interconnection of the universal and the particular-a binary that has been crucial in postcolonialism and remains important for the wider field of world literature. The analysis unfolds with a focus on three broad ethical themes-religion, the memory of violence, and the human-eliciting the novelists'contributions to these debates through the investigation of the functioning of moments of recognition in their novels. Nadia Anwar presents a compelling reading framework for the study and analysis of selected post-independence Nigerian dramas, using the conceptual parameters of metatheatre, a theatrical strategy which foregrounds the process of play-making by breaking the dramatic illusion. She argues that distancing, as a function of metatheatre, creates a balanced theatrical experience and environment in terms of the emotive and cognitive levels of reception of a particular performance. Anwar's book is the first in-depth study of the concept of metatheatre with reference to Nigerian drama including Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman (1975) and King Baabu (2002), Ola Rotimi's Kurunmi (1971) and Hopes of the Living Dead (1988), Femi Osofisan's The Chattering and the Song (1977) and Women of Owu (2006), Esiaba Irobi's Hangmen Also Die (1989), and Stella'Dia Oyedepo's A Play That Was Never to Be (1998). The perspectives of Bertolt Brecht (1936), Thomas J. Scheff (1963), and other theoreticians of dramatic distancing and metatheatre are used in the analyses and, where required, challenged through appropriate contextual and theoretical adjustments. The book is the first attempt to illustrate how Brechtian approach to the display and generation of emotions can be revised through Scheff's model of emotional balance.