Postwar British Literature and Postcolonial Studies

This book reassesses current approaches to postwar writing in Britain in light of ongoing debates within postcolonial studies about the legacy of imperialism and decolonisation, the cultural implications of globalisation and the strengthening of alternative conceptions of national identity across the UK. In narrating the human experience of such historical shifts, Graham MacPhee shows how postwar writers have refashioned the experimentalism of prewar modernism and renovated existing literary forms, infusing them with other cultural traditions in order to register both the pain and the pleasures of multiculturalism.The book argues that postwar British writing belies the oppositions that have emerged since 9/11, between supposedly discrete and integral cultures and between the past of colonisation and the present of a 'globalisation' unrelated to the inequalities of the colonial past. In doing so, it re-examines the significance of decolonisation for contemporary understandings of British national identity and Britain's continuing global role.Key Features* Discusses a wide range of writers including 'dub poets' Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah and Jean 'Binta' Breeze and novelists and dramatists Buchi Emecheta, Caryl Phillips, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie, David Dabydeen, Zadie Smith and Monica Ali* Explores conceptions such as a 'British national literature' and critical terms such as 'new ethnicities', 'migrancy' and 'hybridity'* Provides case studies of postwar texts including Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londoners, John Arden's Sergeant Musgrave's Dance, Linton Kwesi Johnson's Dread, Beat, an' Blood, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, James Kelman's A Disaffection, Ian McEwan's Saturday and Abdulrazak Gurnah's By the Sea* Includes a time line and bibliography, including key journals

Graham MacPhee is Associate Professor of English at West Chester University.