Postcolonial Fiction and Disability: Exceptional Children, Metaphor and Materiality [Hardcover]

This book is the first study of disability in postcolonial fiction. Focusing on canonical novels, it explores the metaphorical functions and material presence of disabled child characters. Barker argues that progressive disability politics emerge from postcolonial concerns, and establishes dialogues between postcolonialism and disability studies.Acknowledgements Introduction 'Decrepit, Deranged, Deformed': Indigeneity and Cultural Health in Potiki Hunger, Normalcy, and Postcolonial Disorder in Nervous Conditions and The Book of Not Cracking India and Partition: Dismembering the National Body The Nation as Freak Show: Monstrosity and Biopolitics in Midnight's Children 'Redreaming the World': Ontological Difference and Abiku Perception in The Famished Road Conclusion: Growing Up Bibliography Index

'Clare Barker's Exceptional Children is a very timely and distinctive book, which makes a strong ethical argument for a critical negotiation of postcolonial studies and disability studies through some illuminating readings of the figure of the child in postcolonial fiction.' - Stephen Morton, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Southampton.

CLARE BARKER Lecturer in English at the University of Birmingham, UK.