This book examines the idea of the self in Anglophone literatures from British colonies in Africa and the subcontinent, and in the context of intercultural encounter, literary hybridity and globalization. The project examines texts by eight authors across the colonial, postwar and post-9/11 eras – Olaudah Equiano, Sake Dean Mahomet, Henry Callaway, R.C. Temple, Amos Tutuola, G.V. Desani, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Aravind Adiga – in order to map different strategies of selfhood across four fields of literature: autobiographical life writing, folk anthology, postwar fabulism, and contemporary realism. Drawing on historical analysis, psychological inquiry, comparative linguistics, postcolonial criticism and social theory, this book responds to a renewed emphasis on the narrative strategies and creative choices involved in a literary construction of the self. Threaded through this investigation is an analysis of the effects of globalization, or the intensification of intercultural and dialogic complexity over time.
Author(s): Inder Sidhu
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 171
City: London
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Self, Identity and Difference
Three Positions of the Self
The Dialogical Self
Hybridity, Colonialisms and Globalization
References
Chapter 2: Negotiating Difference—Positioning the Self in Mahomet and Equiano
Introduction
Life Writing: Decolonizing Autobiography
Life Writing: Testimony and Invention
Bodies of Knowledge
Theorizing Self—Dialogical Self Theory, Polyphony and the Multivoiced ‘I’
Dean Mahomet (1759–1851) and The Travels of Dean Mahomet
Olaudah Equiano (1745–1797) and The Interesting Narrative (1789)
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Importing Knowledge—The Authorial Self and the Expert Position in Callaway and Temple
Introduction
Nineteenth-Century Folklore and Folk Stories
Colonial Folklorists and Authenticity
Colonial Folklore and Creating Knowledge
Henry Callaway (1817–1890) and Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus
R. C. Temple (1850–1931) and Legends of the Punjab
Nursery Tales and Legends: Authorial Self and the Expert Position
The Authorial Self, the Expert and ‘Knowing’
Narrative Strategies in Nursery Tales and Legends
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: The Divisible Self—Global-Local Journeys in Desani and Tutuola
Introduction
Space, Self and Language
G.V. Desani (1909–2000) and All About H. Hatterr
What About Hatterr? Spaces, Positions and Selves
Amos Tutuola (1920–1997) and The Palm-Wine Drinkard
Drinkard’s Quest for Self
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Talking Back—The Uncertain Self and Counter-narratives in Adiga and Dangarembga
Introduction
The Experience of Uncertainty: Journeys into the Unknown
Liquid Modernity: Moving Through Cultural Spaces
Aravind Adiga (1974–) and The White Tiger
Darkness and India Shining
Fragments, Difference and Histories
Tsitsi Dangarembga (1959–) and The Book of Not
Self, Choice, Alterity—Tambu’s Silence
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: At the Intersections of Dialogical Self and Literature
Index
