Postcolonial writers (Adichie, Achebe, Rushdie)

Engelsk A (HHX) · HHX · A-niveau · Litteratur og kultur

🇬🇧 Postcolonial writers (Adichie, Achebe, Rushdie)

Postcolonial literature = literary works that engage with the legacies of European colonialism. Roughly 1950s onwards as colonies gained independence.

Theoretical framework: Edward Said Orientalism (1978) — Western representations of "the Orient" as Other.

Homi Bhabha — hybridity, mimicry, "third space".

Gayatri Spivak — "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988). Frantz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth (1961) — colonial violence + decolonization.

Major postcolonial writers:

1.

Chinua Achebe (Nigeria, 1930-2013) — father of African literature in English. Things Fall Apart (1958) — Igbo society's collision with British colonialism. Most-taught African novel globally. No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964). Critical of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (essay "An Image of Africa", 1975).

2.

Salman Rushdie (Indian-British, b. 1947) — Midnight's Children (1981, Booker Prize) — Saleem Sinai born at midnight of Indian independence. Magic realism + politics. The Satanic Verses (1988) — Khomeini fatwa 1989. Survived attempted assassination August 2022 in NY.

3.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria, b. 1977) — Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) — Biafra-war 1967-70. Americanah (2013) — Nigerian student in USA + UK, race + identity. We Should All Be Feminists (2014, TED talk). The Danger of a Single Story (TED talk 2009 — most-viewed).

4.

Arundhati Roy (India, b. 1961) — ***The God of Small Thing

Læringsmål

• Redegøre for postkoloniale temaer hos forfattere som Adichie, Achebe og Rushdie
• Analysere et postkolonialt værk med fokus på identitet og magt
• Diskutere den postkoloniale litteraturs relevans i dag

Sådan kan du arbejde med emnet

• Analyser, hvad Chinua Achebe kritiserer i Things Fall Apart og diskuter, hvordan han vender den koloniale fortælling om ved at gøre den afrikanske stemme til centrum
• Læs Adichies TED-talk The Danger of a Single Story og diskuter, hvordan ensidig repræsentation af Afrika stadig er tilstede i medier og populærkultur
• Analyser begrebet hybrididentitet i Rushdies Midnight s Children og diskuter, hvad det siger om forholdet mellem Indien og Storbritanien efter kolonitiden

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