Postcolonial Studies and the Literary

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Part I

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. The Melancholia of Postcolonial Studies

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 3-25

   3. Returning to the Literary

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 26-51

   4. Utopian-Interpretive Trajectories

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 52-72

3. Part II

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

      PDF

   2. Form and Temporality in Ousmane Sembène’s Xala

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 75-95

   3. Arcades of Foreignness: J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 96-120

   4. Realism in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 121-137

   5. Conclusion: Realism, Form and Balance

      • Eli Park Sorensen

      Pages 138-142

4. Back Matter

   Pages 143-189

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Critics have argued that the field of postcolonial studies has become melancholic due to its institutionalization in recent years. This book identifies some limits of postcolonial studies and suggests ways of coming to terms with this issue via a renewed engagement with the literary dimension in the postcolonial text.

• Interpretation
• novel
• Postcolonial Studies
• realism
• British and Irish Literature

'This is an engaging and truly thoughtful book. It is poised and ambitious, both in its bold and subtle handling of the literary texts on which it centres and in its overarching arguments. Sorensen's reconsideration of the place of the literary in postcolonial studies seems very timely, as regards not only the evolution of postcolonial studies but the future of literary studies more widely'. - Nicholas Harrison, Professor of Postcolonial Literature, King's College London, University of London, UK

'Park Sorensen's study provides an in-depth consideration of some current debates in postcolonial studies and also provides a rigorous overview of competing theories of the novel and the literary... This book would be suitable for postgraduate students and researchers interested in emerging trends in postcolonial literary studies and the relationship between postcolonialism and the literary as a whole.' - Routledge ABES June 2011

'...the case studies offer stimulating re-readings of three formally diverse postcolonial novels' - Valerie Kennedy, English Studies

ELI PARK SORENSEN wrote his PhD in Comparative Literature at University College, London, UK, where he was also a teaching fellow. His work focuses on postcolonial studies, contemporary British fiction, international adoption literature and literary theory.  He is currently working on a book about Caryl Phillips.

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