David Hare has been called the most political living contemporary British playwright. Arguably Hare has used the 'Third World' as a rough draft of liberal humanist theories - those mainly about politics. In comparison to other political dramatists of our time, he is a 'different' playwright in that his radicalism is not restricted to the British society and national themes: he also addresses the cataclysmic events of the contemporary East. As one of the leading playwrights of the post-war generation in Britain, he examines such overseas issues as the 9/11 event and its aftermath, the...

Don DeLillo is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary American fiction. This book addresses the intersection between postmodernism and neo-orientalism in his fiction. The writers examine the significance of orientalist discourse, the system of representations about the East, which figures noticeably in DeLillo's fiction, particularly in The Names, Mao II, Cosmopolis, and Falling Man. They argue that this discourse fuses with discourses of terrorism and fundamentalism. Central in this book is the contention that despite the postmodernist claims about the validity of all narratives,...

In dramatizing the conditions of Irish society Brian Friel is keenly aware of the close relations among language, discourse, myth, politics and history. He is mostly concerned with the colonial and post-colonial contexts in which language and cultural clashes are dominant factors. The writers offer an analysis of his drama in terms of the significance of forms of capital in them. Friel's theatre in its social dimension is one of societal transformations, of transitions. What is the modality of cultural changes at such moments of transition? This book is an attempt to provide a sort of answer...