Postcolonial Life-Writing: Culture, politics and self-representation

198 Pages·2009·1.633 MB·English

by  Bart Moore-Gilbert

Postcolonial Life-Writing
Postcolonial Life-Writing offers a sustained critique of this increasingly visible and
influential field on cultural production.
Bart Moore-Gilbert considers the relationship between postcolonial life-writing
and its western analogues, identifying the key characteristics that differentiate the
genre in the postcolonial context. Focusing particularly on writing styles and
narrativeconceptionsoftheSelf,thisbookuncoversadistinctiveparalleltradition
of auto/biographical writing and analyses its cultural and political significance.
Original and provocative, this book brings together the two distinct fields of
Postcolonial Studies and Auto/biography Studies in a fruitful and much-needed
dialogue.
Bart Moore-Gilbert is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at Goldsmiths, Uni-
versity of London. His publications include Kipling and ‘Orientalism’; Postcolonial
Theory: Contexts, Practicesp; Politics, Writing India: British Representations of India 1757–
1990; and Hanif Kureishi.
POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURES
Edited in collaboration with the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, University of
KentatCanterbury,thisseriespresentsawiderangeofresearchintopostcolonialliteraturesby
specialistsinthefield.Volumeswillconcentrateonwritersandwritingoriginatinginpreviously
(or presently) colonized areas, and will include material from non-Anglophone as well as
Anglophonecoloniesandliteratures.Theserieswillalsoincludecollectionsofimportantessays
fromolderjournals,andre-issuesofclassictextsonpostcolonialsubjects.Routledgeispleasedto
inviteproposalsfornewbooksintheseries.InterestedauthorsshouldcontactCarolineRooney
or Donna Landry at the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, University of Kent at
Canterbury,orRoutledge’sCommissioningEditorforLiterature.
Theseriescomprisesthreestrands:
Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures is a forum for innovative new research
intendedforaspecialistreadership.Publishedinhardback,titlesinclude:
1 MagicalRealisminWestAfricanFiction:SeeingwithaThirdEye
BrendaCooper
2 ThePostcolonialJaneAustenEditedbyYou-meParkandRajeswariSunderRajan
3 ContemporaryCaribbeanWomen’sPoetry:MakingStyleDeniseDecairesNarain
4 AfricanLiterature,AnimismandPoliticsCarolineRooney
5 Caribbean–EnglishPassages:IntertextualityinaPostcolonialTradition
TobiasDöring
6 IslandsinHistoryandRepresentationEditedbyRodEdmondandVanessaSmith
7 CivilityandEmpire:LiteratureandCultureinBritishIndia,
1822–1922AnindyoRoy
8 WomenWritingtheWestIndies,1804–1939:‘AHotPlace,BelongingtoUs’
EvelynO’Callaghan
9 PostcolonialPacificWriting:RepresentationsoftheBodyMichelleKeown
10 WritingWoman,WritingPlace:ContemporaryAustralianandSouth
AfricanFictionSueKossew
11 LiteraryRadicalisminIndia:Gender,NationandtheTransitionto
IndependencePriyamvadaGopal
12 PostcolonialConrad:ParadoxesofEmpireTerryCollits
13 AmericanPacificism:OceaniaintheU.S.ImaginationPaulLyons
14 DecolonizingCulturesinthePacific:ReadingHistoryandTraumain
ContemporaryFictionSusanY.Najita
15 WritingSriLanka:Literature,ResistanceandthePoliticsofPlaceMinoliSalgado
16 LiteratureoftheIndianDiaspora:TheorizingtheDiasporicImaginary
VijayMishra
17 SecularisminthePostcolonialIndianNovel:NationalandCosmopolitan
NarrativesinEnglishNeelamSrivastava
18 EnglishWritingandIndia,1600–1920:ColonizingAestheticsPramodK.Nayar
19 DecolonisingGender:Literature,EnlightenmentandtheFeminineReal
CarolineRooney
20 PostcolonialTheoryandAutobiographyDavidHuddart
21 ContemporaryArabWomenWritersAnastasiaValassopoulos
22 TransnationalisminSouthernAfricanLiterature:Modernists,Realists,and
theInequalityofPrintCultureStefanHelgessen
23 Postcolonialism,PsychoanalysisandBurton:PowerPlayofEmpireBenGrant
Postcolonial Literatures makes available in paperback important work in the field. Hard-
back editions of these titles are also available, some published earlier in the Routledge Research
strandoftheseries.Titlesinpaperbackinclude:
1 PostcolonialStudies:AMaterialistCritiqueBenitaParry
2 MagicalRealisminWestAfricanFiction:SeeingwithaThirdEye
BrendaCooper
3 ThePostcolonialJaneAustenEditedbyYou-meParkandRajeswariSunderRajan
4 ContemporaryCaribbeanWomen’sPoetry:MakingStyleDeniseDecairesNarain
5 AfricanLiterature,AnimismandPoliticsCarolineRooney
6 PostcolonialConrad:ParadoxesofEmpireTerryCollits
7 WritingWoman,WritingPlace:ContemporaryAustralianandSouthAfrican
FictionSueKossew
8 WomenWritingtheWestIndies,1804–1939:‘AHotPlace,BelongingtoUs’
EvelynO’Callaghan
9 IslandsinHistoryandRepresentationEditedbyRodEdmondandVanessaSmith
10 Caribbean–EnglishPassages:IntertextualityinaPostcolonialTradition
TobiasDöring
11 DecolonizingCulturesinthePacific:ReadingHistoryandTraumain
ContemporaryFictionSusanY.Najita
ReadingsinPostcolonialLiteraturesofferscollectionsofimportantessaysfromjournalsor
classictextsinthefield.Titlesinclude:
1 SelectedEssaysofWilsonHarrisEditedbyAndrewBundy

Postcolonial Life-Writing
Culture, politics and self-representation
Bart Moore-Gilbert
Firsteditionpublished2009byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
byRoutledge
270MadisonAve,NewYork,NY10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
©2009BartMoore-Gilbert
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor
utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now
knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany
informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe
publishers.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Moore-Gilbert,B.J.,1952-
Postcoloniallife-writing:culture,politics,andself-representation/
BartMoore-Gilbert.–1sted.
p.cm.–(Routledgeresearchinpostcolonialliteratures)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Autobiography.2.Commonwealthliterature(English)–Historyand
criticism.3.Authors,Commonwealth–Biography–Historyandcriticism.4.Self
inliterature.5.Identity(Psychology)inliterature.6.Commonwealthcountries–
Inliterature.7.Postcolonialisminliterature.8.Biographyasaliteraryform.
I. Title.
PR9080.5.M662009
820.9'35–dc22
2008052260
ISBN 0-203-87624-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-44299-0 (hbk)
ISBN10:0-415-44300-8(pbk)
ISBN10:0-203-87624-5(ebk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-44299-2(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-44300-5(pbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-87624-4(ebk)
In memoriam Edward W. Said, 1935–2003
‘Speak Truth to Power’

Contents
Acknowledgements x
Introduction xi
1 Centred and decentred Selves 1
2 Relational Selves 17
3 Embodied Selves 34
4 Located Selves 51
5 Working the borders of genre in postcolonial life-writing 69
6 Non-western narrative resources in postcolonial life-writing 91
7 Political Self-representation in postcolonial life-writing 111
Notes 131
Select bibliography 156
Index 167