The Internationalization of English Literature: 1948-2000

ISBN-13: 9780198184287 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 386 str.

Bruce King

Opis

The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more.
Each of these groundbreaking volumes offers a leading scholar's considered assessment of the authors, works, cultural traditions, events, and ideas that shaped the literary voices of their age. The series will enlighten and inspire not only everyone studying, teaching, and researching in English Literature, but all serious readers.
In the future will there be a literary history of England, or will it be an English-language literary history? This important volume in the new Oxford English Literary History covers colonial, postcolonial, and immigrant writers since 1948. After the wave of decolonization following World War II and the growth of large immigrant communities in England, Bruce King asks the questions: Can we still talk of the English nation as a cultural unit? What does it mean to be British, English, or national? In his broad-ranging discussion, he covers such topics as Black British Poetry and Drama, Commonwealth Literature, and British African Literature, and looks in depth at writers such as V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, and Zadie Smith.
King writes from the conviction that it is wrong to assume that national cultures are finished. As he lucidly and persuasively demonstrates, a large, accomplished, socially significant body of writing in England sits between and overlaps with an older British tradition and its various sub-divisions, new national literatures, a post-imperial Commonwealth tradition, and contemporary global literature.

Recenzje

Bruce King brings to the scene the virtues of traditional lit-crit. along with a tough-minded determination to map the features of the new writing. He begins with a refreshingly bullish justification of his title and subject.

O autorze

Bruce King has taught at universities in England, Scotland, Canada, Nigeria, New Zealand, and other countries. His publications include New English Literatures: Cultural Nationalism in a Changing World, Modern Indian Poetry in English, Three Indian Poets, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, and West Indian Drama. He has also edited many books of original essays, including Introduction to Nigerian Literature, West-Indian Literature, The Commonwealth Novel Since 1960, Post-Colonial Drama, and New Centres of Consciousness.