Postcolonial Literature and Multicultural Issues

The adjective ‘postcolonial’ refers to the period after colonisation and the one after the independence. It deals with issues like identity, historical truth.

Fundamental about the postcolonial literatures is the complex process by which the English language has been appropriated and modified by colonial societies. Literature in the former British colonies has transformed standard English into distinctive national varieties.

Writers show characters searching for identity and for their historical roots.

Black authors who live in Britain, but are not British, are deeply influenced by British culture, but never forget their roots and have deep relation with their countries’ past histories. They all share the same analysis of the integration issues, including racism and the clash of opposite cultures. Most of them adopt ironical registers so as to take a distance.

The main post-colonial issues found in contemporary literature are:

-Identity as a plurality of the identities of people belonging to contrasting worlds;

-Culture and tradition, belief and religion which post-colonial writers try to recuperate through memory;

-Language between English and writers’ native ones;

-Sense of displacement.

The decolonisation took place in the 20^th century in all British and European colonies. Yet political independence did not always lead to cultural independence from political, economic and cultural models. Eurocentric values still often prevail over indigenous ones.

After world war II a new phase of immigration to Great Britain began, involving people from new Commonwealth countries. Yet, from the beginning, black immigrants were considered a ‘problem’ and faced racism. The country was slow in coming to terms with the new ethnic groups and becoming a multicultural, multiracial society.

All over the world, people’s mobility has dramatically increased for a number of reasons falling under the push and pull factors. Several waves of migration have created large communities of non-British citizen in the country, who are the others next door, people who keep their own traditions and have to cope with British cultural costumes. Britain are the people out there, still writing in English to make their voices heard everywhere.

Today a symbol of postcolonial place is the metropolis, where the society is a crossroad of different cultures and values. A melting pot of languages and identities, religion and races, where trying to overcome the barriers between class and colour.