POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

• Literature produced by writers of the former British colonies.

It deals with:

• Identity
• Hibridity
• Historical Truth

Characters search for their historical roots; writers claimed new dignity for their communities.

1. OTHERNESS

English literature of the Empire, by now dead, had defined the others strange, lazy, savage... With the Empire’s collapse, the relationship between Britain and colonies became more complex than in the past. A lot of non British citizens have been settled in Britain. They keep their traditions and have to cope with British customs. Those people present a different point of view on issues like race, class and gender. A lot of writers, living in the colonies, are now expressing their opinions on the human condition in their countries, in English.

2. THE OTHERS NEXT DOOR

Black authors, living in Britain, are influenced by British culture, but they don’t forget their roots. They analyse integration issues such as racism and the clash of opposite cultures. Most of them adopt ironical registers, others use lyrical tones. They play with the language, because they feel like outsiders.

3. POST COLONIAL ISSUES

• Identity: highlights the plurality of people’s identities
• Culture: postcolonial writers want to recuperate their identity and traditions
• Belief and religion: underline their native heritage in which Animism coexists with monotheism.
• Language: the comparison between British English and creoles is a way to show their race pride.
• Location or Sense of Displacement: they feel different from British society and landscape

MULTICULTURAL ISSUES

1. DECOLONIZATION

• The process took place during 20^th century.
• Political Independence did not always lead to cultural independence. British culture prevails nowadays over indigenous ones (for example for the language).

Two Reactions:

• Native identity and language must be adopted to get rid of the previous cultural heritage (the one of the colonizers)
• Transnational identity and critique to the postcolonial state.

2. MIGRATION

After 1945 a new phase of immigration to Great Britain began. A lot of people living in the colonies (especially in India, Pakistan and Africa) left their birthplaces to go to the Great Britain , because they were looking for employment opportunities. From the beginning Britons considered immigrants as a “problem” and so faced racism. The country was slow in integrating the new ethnic groups. For someone immigration was a threat to British identity. Today the multicultural model is being questioned to be too tolerant.

3. PLACE/ DISPLACEMENT

A symbol of postcolonial place is the metropolis, which is a melting pot of identities, languages, religions and traditions. London is the capital of the lost Empire. A lot of immigrants from the colonies moved there. Indeed nowadays London is a multicultural city. Black British tried to find a balance between the sense of place, living there and the one of displacement, being coloured.

4. MULTICULTURAL BRITAIN

British national identity has become more complex due to:

• Post-war migration
• Globalisation
• Long-term decline as “world power”
• Britain’s role in and out of Europe
• Devolution
• End of Empire
• Rapid advance of social pluralism

THE EMPIRE WRITES BACK

75% of people living today have experienced colonialism. It has influenced their lives. It has been important its influence in politics and in economy, but it is often less evident its influence on the frameworks of people. These perceptions are expressed through literature, arts, music and dance.

At the beginning English was a means to enforce British power in the colonies, but then it has been appropriated and modified by these societies. Colonies’ inhabitants have been good at using the language of their rules and now they are masters of that language. Literature has transformed in the colonies British English into distinctive varieties by the introduction of different syntax, pronunciation and vocabulary. The “appropriateness” of English to describe non English experiences is a central point to understand this literature.