Reading Postcolonial Theory: Key Texts in Context

This book is an essential introduction to significant texts in postcolonial theory. It looks at seminal works in the ‘moments of their making’ and delineates the different threads that bind postcolonial studies. Each chapter presents a comprehensive discussion of a major text and contextualises it in the wake of contemporary themes and debates. The volume:

• Studies major texts by foremost scholars ― Edward W. Said, Chinua Achebe, Albert Memmi, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Carter, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Ashis Nandy, Robert J. C. Young, Ngugi wa Thiongo, and Sara Suleri

• Shifts focus from colonial experience to underlying principles of critical engagement

• Uses accessible, jargon-free language

Focused, engaging and critically insightful, this book will be indispensable to students and scholars of literary and cultural studies, comparative literature, and postcolonial studies.

Bibhash Choudhury teaches English in Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India. He is the author of English Social and Cultural History (2005), Beyond Cartography: The Contemporary South Asian Novel in English (2011) and E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime (2013). He has also edited a number of books including Edward Said and the Politics of Culture (2008), Amitav Ghosh: Critical Essays (2009) and Western Mythology: Accounts, Versions, Tales (2014).