Postcolonial Space

A Poetics of Postmodernism is neither a defense nor a denunciation of the postmodern. It continues the project of Linda Hutcheon's Narcissistic Narrative and A Theory of Parody in studying formal self-consciousness in art, but adds to this both an historical and an ideological dimension. Modelled on postmodern architecture, postmodernism is the name given here to current cultural practices characterized by major paradoxes of form and of ideology. The "poetics" of postmodernism offered here is drawn from these contradictions, as seen in the intersecting concerns of both contemporary theory and cultural practice.

A Shield of Coolest Air (1992), was set among Somali refugees in London and won the 1993 David Thomas Award. 

A lyrical coming-of-age story and a provocative retelling of the colonial history of Jamaica

Originally published in 1984, this critically acclaimed novel is the story of Clare Savage, a light-skinned, twelve-year-old, middle-class girl growing up in Jamaica in the 1950s. As she tries to find her own identity and place in her culture, Clare carries the burden of her mixed heritage. There are the Maroons, who used the conch shell—the abeng—to pass messages as they fought against their English enslavers. And there is her white great-great-grandfather, Judge Savage, who burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. In Clare’s struggle to reconcile the conflicting legacies of her own personal lineage, esteemed Caribbean author Michelle Cliff dramatically confronts the cultural and psychological violence inflicted upon the island and its people by colonialism.

From Library Journal

Gabalawi's mansion sits at the desert's edge, surrounded by high-walled gardens. His sons, however, quarrel over his estate, and the omnipotent gangster banishes them from his earthly paradise. Their descendants settle outside the wall, desperately poor but always praying to Gabalawi for salvation. As each succeeding generation spawns its messiah, the people rise up against the ruling gangsters, seizing their portion of the estate, but greed and ignorance prove their ultimate undoing, poverty and suffering their inescapable fate. Mahfouz masterly unfolds this timeless story of oppression and a people's longing for deliverance from themselves. As in The Harafish (LJ 4/15/94), he focuses on how principle is coopted by mob psychology and all good works are subject to the entropy of corruption. This novel, which begs for religious allegory, is highly recommended for all collections.?Paul E. Hutchison, Bellefonte, Pa.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Colonialism/Postcolonialism is both a crystal-clear and authoritative introduction to the field and a cogently-argued defence of the field's radical potential. It's exactly the sort of book teachers want their students to read.' – Peter Hulme, Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex, UK 

'Loomba is a keen and canny critic of ever-shifting geopolitical realities, and Colonialism/Postcolonialism remains a primer for the academic and common reader alike.' – Antoinette Burton, Department of History, University of Illinois, USA

'It is rare to come across a book that can engage both student and specialist. Loomba simultaneously maps a field and contributes provocatively to key debates within it. Situated comparatively across disciplines and cultural contexts, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in postcolonial studies.' – Priyamvada Gopal, Faculty of English, Cambridge University, USA

'Colonialism/Postcolonialism moves adroitly between the general and the particular, the conceptual and the contextual, the local and the global, and between texts and material processes. Distrustful of established and self-perpetuating assumptions, foci and canonical texts which threaten to fossilize postcolonial studies as a discipline, Loomba's magisterial study raises many crucial issues pertaining to social structure and identity; engaging with different modes of theory and social explanation in the process. There is no doubt that this book remains the best general introduction to the field.' – Kelwyn Sole Professor, English Department, University of Cape Town

'Lucid and incisive this is a wonderful introduction to the contentious yet vibrant field of post-colonial studies. With consummate ease Loomba maps the field, unravels the many strands of the debate and provides a considered critique. She shows how post colonial theory forces us to reconsider some of our founding ideas, reorient our frames of enquiry, and rethink the very notion of colonialism. A must-read for everyone.' – Neeladri Bhattacharya, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Constructing Pakistan addresses the previously neglected aspect of postcolonial and historical engagement with the creation and construction of Indian Muslim national identity before the partition of India in 1947. Masood Ashraf Raja's main assertion, challenging the conventional and postcolonial appraisals of the Indian national history, is that the Indian Muslim particular identity and Muslim exceptionalism preceded the rise of Congress or Gandhian nationalism. Using major theories of nationalism-including works of Benedict Anderson, Anthony D. Smith, John Breuilly, Partha Chatterjee and others-and analysis of literary, political, and religious texts produced by Indian Muslims, Constructing Pakistan traces the varied Muslim responses to the post 1857 British ascendancy. This study provides a multilayered discussion of Indian Muslim nationalism from the rise of post 1857 Muslim exceptionalism to the beginnings of a more focused struggle for a nation-sate in the 1940s. 

In this dual act of retrieval and intervention, a varied mixture of literary, political, and religious texts are employed to suggest that if the Muslim textual production of this time period is read within the realm of politics and not just within the arena of culture, then the rise of Indian Muslim nationalism can be clearly traced within these texts and through their affective value for the Indian Muslims.

Raja states that no such work exits either in the postcolonial field or in the field of area studies that combines close readings of the texts, their reception, and the politics of identity formation specifically related to the rise of Indian Muslim nationalism. The author's main argument hinges on two important assumptions: 1) After the rebellion it becomes extremely important for the Muslim elite to force the dominant British regime into a hegemonic view of the Muslims, and 2) this forces the Muslim elite to develop a language of politics that must always invoke the people in order to enter the British system of privileges and dispensations. Consequently, the rise of early Muslim exceptionalism and its eventual specific nationalistic unfolding, of which Pakistan was one outcome, can then be read as political acts that long preceded the Indian national party politics. The reason most Indian and European historians cannot trace a pronounced Muslim sense of separate identity before the 1940s is because they trace this identity either in the form of resistance or in the shape of party politics. The early loyalism of the Muslim elite, in such strategy, remains unexplained, as it does not fit the resistance model. Constructing Pakistan attempts to re-read this loyalism as a sophisticated form of resistance that, in the end, makes the Muslim question central to the British politics of post-rebellion era.

This remarkable and symbolic novel centers on Wariinga's tragedy and uses it to tell a story of contemporary Kenya.

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From Publishers Weekly

Cooke (Women and the War Story) details the lives of three Palestinian women in this delicately crafted novel, juxtaposing their personal struggles with their experience of the volatile world around them. Various first-person accounts of events from 1947 to 1990 begin in 1960, with 12-year-old Maryam, whose history homework requires her to interview her parents about the war, questioning her mother, Assia. "Which war?" is Assia's annoyed response. In 1948, Samya, the family matriarch and survivor of the British Mandate, welcomes her daughter, Assia, with her husband, Basil, home to Jerusalem, following the massacre of Deir Assin. The couple were supporters of the Palestinian Resistance, and their infant son, Usama, was shot in Basil's arms while the two fled the fierce fighting. In Jerusalem, Assia struggles to make ends meet by starting a day-care center while raising her two daughters, Maryam and the mute Afaf, with the help of her mother and troubled, often-unemployed husband. Maryam and Afaf struggle to comprehend their parents' complicated relationship, while coping with their own sibling rivalries. The short, multivoiced chapters inhibit narrative flow, and an abrupt ending mars the tale, but Cooke compels with complex character relationships. At times an unabashed commentary on what the author sees as Israeli tyranny, this novel will be better understood by those who have more than a passing knowledge of the Jewish/Muslim struggle and pertinent dates in its history. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From The Washington Post’s Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Michael Dirda Because of Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Rohinton Mistry, to mention just a few of the most prominent authors, American readers have long been able to enjoy one terrific Indian novel after another. But Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is likely to be the first widely read book by a Pakistani writer. Mueenuddin spent his early childhood in Pakistan, then lived in the United States — he attended Dartmouth and Yale — and has since returned to his father’s homeland, where he and his wife now manage a farm in Khanpur. These connected stories show us what life is like for both the rich and the desperately poor in Mueenuddin’s country, and the result is a kind of miniaturized Pakistani “human comedy.”