Compromise and Resistance in Postcolonial Writing E. M. Forster's Legacy

by Fernández Carbajal, Alberto

• ISBN13: 9781137288929
• ISBN10: 1137288922
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-02-27
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Compromise and Resistance in Postcolonial Writing reclaims the figure of E. M. Forster for a new generation of readers. It examines how writers from several postcolonial nations, including Britain, do not 'write back' to Forster antithetically but draw inspiration from his influential critique of Britain and the Empire. Through its wide-ranging exploration of selected fiction by Paul Scott, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Nadine Gordimer, Michael Ondaatje, J. G. Farrell, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith, this book highlights the ways in which Forster's work encourages literary dialogue across historical, political and national barriers. The impact of Forster's homosexuality, humanism, modernism and liberalism in prominent postcolonial novels demonstrates the relevance of Forster's concerns to cultural conversations transcending their different locations. This is a unique and fresh addition to the changing field of postcolonial studies and offers new insight into the controversial relationship between colonial and postcolonial writing.

Author Biography

Alberto Fernández Carbajal has taught at the Universities of Leeds, Edge Hill and York St John and is currently Teaching Fellow in Postcolonial Literature at the University of Leicester, UK. His work on Zadie Smith and E. M. Forster has been published by ARIEL (A Review of International English Literature).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction – Liberal, Humanist, Modernist, Queer? Reclaiming Forster's Legacies
1. 'He is One of Your Hollow Men': Homosexuality and Sublimation in Paul Scott's The Raj Quartet and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust
2. Shattered Realities, Torn Nations: (Post)Modernism in J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur and Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day
3. Of 'Planetary strangers': Humanism in Nadine Gordimer's The Lying Days and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient
4. The Politics of Friendship and Hospitality: Liberalism in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh and in Zadie Smith's On Beauty
Conclusion: Towards a Cosmopolitan Humanism
Bibliography