Postcolonial Literary History and Indian English Fiction

Written by Paul Sharrad, professor of English at Wollongong University, Australia, this book is the successful outcome of a difficult feat––it represents an interesting new approach to a well-trodden field of study. In this collection of essays, the author revisits certain issues within the distinctive frames of each essay. Of particular interest is the way the author is continually mindful of how postcolonial studies might be reconceptualised––an approach that many critics of note have taken in recent years, especially Neil Lazarus, Reed Dasenbrock, and Bart Moore-Gilbert, in different ways. This author’s way is, in part, to reconsider “postcolonial literary history…against ideas of History as a dominant epistemology.” Another refreshing take here too is the way in which the theoretical positions are meaningfully explored in the context of imaginative literary texts; the book brings together the best scholarly qualities of close reading and a sophisticated and nuanced understanding of theory and the history that cloaks everything. This book is a very significant contribution to postcolonial studies and advances the ever more richly complicated discourse that has emerged in the field.