Postcolonial Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography
Bahri, Deepika. “Emory University Postcolonial Studies” Spring 1996. Spring 2005. <http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/>
This website is a project of the students and faculty of Emory University. It is a resource that provides biographies and bibliographies of many important postcolonial authors. It also provides links to critics, theorists, and terms. Because it gives detailed information about many authors, it is a wonderful source for students of literature. In addition, many of the biographies are written by students at Emory, so it is easy to read and understand. The authors assume familiarity with the ideas of postcolonialism, but they also provide links to any terms that might prove problematic for a beginner in the field. I used this site for my research, and I highly recommend it to students of postcolonial literature.
Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Boehmer only talks about postcolonial literature written in English, not the postcolonial texts of other languages. She gives a thorough explanation of the terms colonial and postcolonial, and she explains other terms used to describe postcolonial literature, such as world fiction, commonwealth literature, and world literature in English. Boehmer gives a detailed description of how colonialism affected the way people wrote; she says, “with the onset of European migration and colonization, people experienced an intense need to create new worlds out of old stories” (13). After she gives a general introduction to postcolonialism the beginning of the book, she then looks at postcolonial works specifically. This book was specifically helpful to me because it includes a world map of postcolonial countries, and it highlights some of the African authors that I am interested in, and I believe that students of postcolonial literature could benefit from the general explanations Boehmer provides.
Gilbert, Helen, Ed. Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology. New York: Routledge, 2001.
In Postcolonial Plays: An Anthology, Helen Gilbert provides a good introduction to postcolonial plays. Gilbert does not provide much biographical information on the authors anthologized; rather, most of the information in each introduction centers around the themes and ideas in play itself. African writers such as Maishe Maponya, Jane Taylor, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, and Ama Ata Aidoo are anthologized here, and while I mainly looked at these African authors, I think that a student of postcolonial literature who is interested in any country’s texts would truly benefit from reading through all of the introductions and drama collected in this anthology.
Hawley, John C., Ed. Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001
The Encyclopedia of Postcolonial Studies is an indispensable source for any student of Postcolonial Literature. The encyclopedia has entries for postcolonial authors, postcolonial terms, postcolonial nations, and postcolonial themes, and all topics are easily accessible through a detailed index. Also extremely helpful is the encyclopedia’s bibliography of sources; the bibliography has many pages of sources for further research on postcolonial topics.
James, Trevor. English Literature from the Third World. Longman York Press, 1986.
In English Literature from the Third World, Trevor James examines English Literature from The Caribbean, Africa, The Indian sub-continent, Malaysia, Singapore, and The Philippines. The chapter that was most beneficial to my research was that on English literature from Africa. He outlines the beginning of African literature, describing different genres and introducing authors like Amos Tutuola, Christopher Okigbo, Dennis Brutus, and Chinua Achebe. After a general introduction to African literature, James examines African authors from different regions: West Africa, East and Central Africa, and Southern Africa. This book is easy to understand and would be beneficial to any student of postcolonial literature.
Landow, George P. “Contemporary Imperial and Postcolonial Literature in English” <www.postcolonialweb.org>
Landow’s site has a vast amount of information about postcolonialism. Not only does Landow provide biographies of many postcolonial authors, but he also provides contextual information about the themes of politics, religion, gender, and others. For every postcolonial country or region, Landow provides a broad, thorough background. I would highly recommend this site to beginning students of literature because the information provided is easily comprehendible and the site is easy to navigate. This site is also extremely helpful for students interested in further research because it provides links to hundreds of secondary sources about colonialism, slavery, postcolonial theory, African countries, and the British Empire.
Lionnet, Francoise. Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity. London, Cornell University Press, 1995.
In Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity, Francoise Lionnet studies the work of Michelle Cliff, Ananda Devi, Maryse Conde, Myriam Warner-Vieyra, Susanne Dracius-Pinalie, Gayle Jones, Bessie Head, Nawal El Saadawi, and Leila Sebbar, and she examines themes of history, sexuality, humanism, the body, and exile in these authors’ postcolonial texts. She says that her focus “is on the processes that produce the personal and make it historically and politically unique; that is, I am interested in the different forms of metissage that exist in different geographical contexts” (4). Lionnet talks about how women writers give unique perspective into the “border zones” (6) of culture. This book provides great information about important themes in some of Africa’s best postcolonial women writers, and I highly recommend it to anyone applying feminist critique to postcolonial texts.
Ross, Robert L. Ed Colonial and Postcolonial Fiction. New York: Garland Publishing, 1999.
This anthology of colonial and postcolonial literature was very helpful to my research. In the introduction to the anthology, Ross explains general ideas about postcolonial literature and theory. Ross admits that there are no “theoretical basis or biases”(ix) behind the book, and he says that the aim of his anthology is to present a “collection of exemplary writing from the colonial and postcolonial period” (ix). Because this anthology is just a representation of postcolonial literature, it is very helpful. The most helpful information for my research was Ross’s introduction to every author he chose to anthologize.
_________. International Literature in English. St. James Press, 1991.
In International Literature in English, Robert Ross gives a good introduction to authors and critics of postcolonial texts. He explains the process that English literature has gone through, and he describes the progression towards seeing postcolonial texts as truly important. Though this literature used to be seen as a “minor appendage to the genuine literature of Great Britian” (XV), it is now studied seriously. He also explains the different labels this body of literature has been given while rejecting every name but international literature in English. Throughout his book, he highlights many different postcolonial authors, and he sometimes mentions a critic’s reaction to them. I would highly recommend this book to any student of postcolonial literature; Ross provides a good introduction to the subject, and he explains the terms and concepts of postcolonial literature.
Tabron, Judith L. Postcolonial Literature from Three Continents. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2003.
In her book, Tabron closely examines three post-colonial texts. She analyzes Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wind Drinkard, H.D.’s Helen in Egypt, Peter White’s Voss, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. She looks at four themes in these works: technology, language, geography, and memory, and she asserts that these themes are important in postcolonial texts. One thing that Tabron is insistent upon is the complexity of the pressures on postcolonial writers, pressures that largely stem from social binaries such as black and white, gay and straight, right or wrong. This book is complex, and it was not particularly helpful to my research because it only looks at a few authors. Because my project is for beginning students of literature, I feel that the themes and ideas in Tabron’s book are not terribly beneficial.