Postcolonial Literature and Challenges for the New Millennium [Hardcover]

This volume brings together an international range of postcolonial scholars to explore four distinct themes which are inherently interconnected within the globalised landscape of the early 21^stcentury: China, Islamic fundamentalism, civil war and environmentalism. Through close-reading a range of literary texts by writers drawn from across the globe, these essays seek to emphasise the importance of literary aesthetics in situating the theoretical underpinnings and political motivations of postcolonial studies in the new millennium.

Colonial legacies, especially in terms of structuring exploitative capitalist relations between countries and regions are shown to persist in postcolonial nations in the form of global civil wars and systemic environmental waste. Chinese authoritarianism and the Indian picturesque represent less familiar forms of neo-colonialism. These essays not only engage with established writers such as Salman Rushdie and Anita Desai; they also critically reflect on work by Nadeem Aslam, Mai Couto, Romesh Gunesekara, Bei Dao and Ma Jian.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Textual Practice.

Foreword: Postcolonial Studies in a Twenty-First Century Environment Lucienne Loh and Malcolm Sen

1. Introduction: Postcolonial literature and challenges for the new millennium Lucienne Loh and Malcolm Sen

2. Including China: Bei Dao, resistance and the imperial state Bill Ashcroft

3. The epic spirit in Ma Jians Beijing Comaand the new China as twenty-first-century Empire Lucienne Loh

4. Reading Lolitain Tel Aviv: terrorism, fundamentalism and the novel Robert Spencer

5. Representing the very ethic he battled: secularism, Islam(ism) and sel&