Postcolonialism is a discourse that studies the attitudes, beliefs, desires, lives and experiences of citizens of countries colonized by the Empire and then decolonized. It takes into account marginalized voices and studies those elements of global study that are not in the mainstream. One manifestation of postcolonialism is postcolonial literature, which examines themes of identity and belonging in a postcolonial world. Here are 7 best postcolonial books to read.
Best Postcolonial Literature to Read | 7 Best Postcolonial Books to Read:
The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh
This brilliant Sahitya Akademi winner straddles the lives of two families – one in Calcutta and one in England. Their lives intertwine in lucid, temporally distorted prose and the reader bears witness to the postcolonial individual mind and the postcolonial society at large. The narrator, harbouring illicit and incestuous feelings for a cousin, his brother, in love with an Englishwoman and their parents, struggling between tradition and modernity, are all products of postcolonialism.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri, the literary representative of Indian diaspora across the world, writes lyrical prose about belonging and postcolonial longing for identity. This book, in specific, tells the story of the Ganguly family, who migrate from India to America. Even though the engineer husband adapts to a new life, his wife resists change and clings to family. The birth of their son causes upheaval and dichotomy, from the smallest act of naming to the biggest act of upbringing.
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Portraying religious extremism as a remnant of colonialist legacy, Adichie tells the tender story of a young Igbo girl whose religious and strict father abuses her and her mother. But when she meets her Igbo following grandfather and aunt, she realizes the freedom and beauty of the world around her. Suddenly exposed to this utter freedom, she comes to the conclusion that she has been wronged.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
This retelling of Jane Eyre from the perspective of the ‘madwoman in the attic’ has become a classic in its own right. Unfolding in the rich seas of the Caribbean, it tells the story of Antoinette Cosway. Cosway is a young and beautiful mother, whose family sells her off to the English Mr Rochester. The wild society of England as well has her husband drive her to madness. And then they confine her as if she were the culprit. This is not just a feminist and racial telling of an old story, but also a postcolonial one.
Admiring Silence by Abdulrazak Gurnah
In this story of diaspora, a man leaves his home in Zanzibar to flee to England and found a new life there. He marries an Englishwoman who’s writing a thesis on narrative theory and he himself starts teaching in London. Soon, through the stability of London and the evocative stories of his homeland and his parents, he finds solace. But when he finds a chance to revisit Africa, he realizes that nothing is at it used to be. Through the transformations of his hometown, he sees the transformations within – an eternal postcolonial legacy.
Afternoon Raag by Amit Chaudhuri
This book tells the moving story of a young student studying in Oxford. Here he struggles to come to terms with isolation from his homeland as well as foreigners. Soon he gets involved in a love triangle, something that brings more ache into his life. Capturing the incandescent emotions of that ephemeral period between childhood and adulthood in intensely lyrical, typically postcolonial prose, Chaudhuri outdoes himself.
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Set in a newly decolonized India, this epic saga tells the stories of several characters whose lives intersect and divorce. At the heart of the story is Lata, who must make a choice between three suitors. One is a shoemaker of her mother’s liking. Another is her Bengali sister-in-law’s poet brother. And the third is a Muslim student she falls in love with in college. Juxtaposed against this is the story of Maan, a politician’s son, who falls in love with a Muslim courtesan with a tragic history.
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