Postcolonial literature

Postcolonial literature = texts produced either by writers of colonial/mixed origin or dedicated to colonialism. Postcolonial theory = very contemporary field of study dealing with the role of literary texts in the colonial enterprise, relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, issue of resistance and identity formation, multiculturalism and displacement of the native populations.

It has prefix POST but is it really over? In addition, postcolonialism tends to absorb all postcolonial cultures to one mix and not all writers are content with this unclear label. Positive aspects of colonial enterprise were bringing of civilization and education but native cultures were disrespected, considered savages and exploited. The wealth of British Empire was often built on illegal means like opium trade in China. Identity of a colonized is changes but also identity of a colonizer is changed which served as a kind of mirror no one expected. Popular travel books were interpreting alien culture to the British people but these narratives always presented natives as violent primitive savages because the British already had a certain view of other cultures and applied it on them.

DEREK WALCOTT (*1930)

He was born in the small Caribbean island, won Nobel Prize and he is now a professor of poetry. He is of mixed African/British/Caribbean ancestry and this conflict of loyalties shows throughout his work. In the end, he chose to write in English. Although he speaks of the horrors inflicted by colonizers, he also admires English education canon.

A Far Cry From Africa features this conflict within him and it is his most personal poem about his own position in the world as a writer. He feels indebted to both traditions as he cannot turn away from Africa, Caribbean or to forgive the British colonizers ("I who have cursed the British officer") but he loves English canon nonetheless. The first stanza is full of negative images. He hates all those who inflict and oppress. Some lines are also critical of Africans how they treat between themselves, admitting they are not less violent then the British. There is a dark violent undertone of both Africans and the British rule. In the second stanza, he finds elements in both cultures that formed his identity and feels the conflict of loyalties without solution. "How can I turn from Africa and live?"

The Sea is History starts with a question relating to whether Africans have glorious history like battles, monuments and martyrs but that is what we Westerners expect of history and does not have to apply universally. Then a new voice appears, calling Westerners “Sirs” and claiming that African history is forgotten, buried in the sea. Their history is not recorded by monuments but the suffering on the sea voyage in inhuman conditions. This act of history’s burial is the motif in the poem and also two concepts of understanding history. The speaker goes on to mention certain horrific Biblical events like Genesis, Gomorrah, New Testament, Exodus (slaves forcibly moved from Africa, packed cries on camped ships), Song of Solomon (reference to slavery in Congo) and Babylonian bondage of Jews which can be applied to any subjected nation. These biblical allusions are connected to Caribbean history, saying it is happening again (Africans instead of Jews) and all biblical words are capitalized, emphasizing that Western history feels superior.

The voice of the poem is angry, it is also Westerner’s history they buried in the sea and created that suffering. The voice becomes more authoritative and confident (I’ll guide you there myself.), showing drastic images. Still, every nowadays Jamaican is of three traditions – Caribbean, African and European as well so many influences form identity of these people. The poem shows an act of burying something also in its form. Its subtle and submarine, through colonnades of coral. is alliteration and while pronouncing subtle, B disappears but remains in submarine which creates an eye rhyme (words look identical but when pronounced, there are differences) in colonnades (ko) and coral (kou) as well. This presents different concepts of history and maybe that Caribbean history is hidden in the Western one. The title is kind of ironic – you cannot write history on water, waves disappear which makes capital H ironic. However, the sea is powerful and cannot be ignored. The sea also gives life which shows hope in the optimistic last stanza when the distant sounds can be finally heard now and something good may be beginning. Or the understanding of the title can mean that this history is gone so do not look at us as at former slaves. Forget the sea/slavery, it is not us anymore! Nevertheless, you cannot completely forget it, it is a part of their identity.

FRANZ FANON (1925-1961)

He was the main theorist of anti-colonialism of Algerian origin, one of the first black French people who achieved high standard of education. Fanon was and still is extremely influential, shaped the discipline of postcolonialism and was interested in the resistance against colonial power. A French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre supported his ideas and even wrote a preface to a Fanon’s book and became friends. He started with psychiatry but soon this work field transformed him into a political radical as he often diagnosed identity mental breakdowns of natives. He actively joined and promoted Algerian revolution against the French masters.

He wrote a very influential psychological study Black Skin, White Masks about what it means to be black under colonial influence of whites. It is based on what he really observed in his work as psychiatrist, claiming that blacks had to put on their black skin a white mask and wear it to be likeable to their masters. These natives learned to see themselves through the eyes of colonizers as inferior, inhuman, incompetent which had devastating psychological effects since they lost their true identity. He uses the term to objectify = someone instead of a subject becomes an object, closely connected with a loss a sense of value and self-respect. It applies also in gender studies when in adverts on erection pills a woman is showed only as a sexual object of man’s desire.

Influenced by Algerian revolution in 1960s, he wrote a politically radical study The Wretched of the Earth where natives deprived of their identity began to liberate themselves and it can be applied on any colonized nation. The book contains controversial passages like a chapter where Fanon proposes anti-colonial violence and open-armed resistance to take things into their own hands, creating their own history. However, violence is still violence.

Other chapter is dedicated to prediction of what will follow once nations are liberated. They have a flag, institution in their hands, natural resources but how to actually run the country? In this aspect, Fanon was pessimistic and proved to be right, many liberated African countries are under sectarian violence, corruption and famine. White masters are gone but the black run the country in the same way – one elite was only replaced by another. They gained only “flag waving independence” because structure remained the same, the black government is the puppet to brought up by white masters who are pulling the strings from shadows = neo-colonialism.

CHINUA ACHEBE (*1930)

He was also a creative writer, not only a theorist. Being of Nigerian origin, he is the most famous African author writing in English. His parents were devoted evangelical Protestants who based their life on English model of manners and gave him the middle name Albert (a husband of Queen Victoria) which he rejected during his studies. He wanted to got rid of his English heritage and returned to his African name but he continued writing in English which shows the paradox of the whole postcolonialism. Achebe was criticized for betraying his native language but thanks to it he can speak to global audience and also proves that blacks are able to reach highest education levels.

His book Things Fall Apart (1958) is the most widely read book of African literature. It shows colonialism from the native side, describing life in villages before missionaries came and whose traditions are destroyed by colonialism. In Anthills of the Savannah (1987) he demonstrates his disappointment over the development in Africa where one military government is just replaced by another.

He also wrote a controversial essay An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Joseph Conrad is understood as an anti-colonialist, a defender of native rights in Western canon but Achebe claims that this interpretation is misguided and he is, in fact, “a bloody racist.” He is interested in an African image in Europe, declaring we still bear these inherited prejudices. Europeans projected what was wrong in their humanity on “bestial” African and even nowadays images are only full of war, famine and poachers. No news shows success in African, do Europeans still need to feel superior?

Achebe wants to prove that there is still dormant racist in us, even though we might consider ourselves anti-racist. He chose Conrad to shows that literary fiction is influential. People believe what they read, students cannot read Conrad as anti-colonialist while he uses racist remarks all the time. The thing is that Conrad used racist language and we accept it as normal! We are stuck in old ways of education, canon must be revaluated. However, we have to remember that Conrad experienced the peak of British colonialism. Was it possible to get rid of racism language when he lived in it? No! He would be understood by his contemporaries! Even a genius cannot rid of from language he was born into so the paradox of using racist language and be an anti-colonialists is possible.

The fact is that Conrad as a person might have an issue with black people as he over-uses words like “nigger” and “black” which makes him a perfect subject for psychoanalysis. In addition, his black characters speak only broken grammar and make animal sounds. The death of the main character is symbolically announced by a black person with grammatically wrong sentence “he dead.” Conrad personally visited Congo but failed to notice an exceptional art of local tribes in mask-making. Achebe also presents his own experience in the essay when he meets a stranger on university campus who admits he never thought Africa has any history. After writing Things Fall Apart, he receives a letter from a young student who was happy to learn about strange customs and tribal life. But that was not a purpose of the book! Achebe feels offended not by this child but probably with the system and teachers who failed to get the point. Analogical to white man’s burden, Achebe speaks of brown man’s burden of being true inheritor to the British tradition. For example Indians speak perfect English, have great knowledge of English canon and represent the real Englishness that is now gone from modern British society but they continue that tradition. We can feel Achebe’s anger as he uses rhetorical questions and gives his replies but he answers them himself so he can be as manipulative as Conrad.

EDWARD SAID (1935-2003)

Said was born in Egypt but into a Palestinian refugee family. After he received excellent education, Said moved to the USA but remained pro-Palestinian activist and wanted to negotiate peace. He was the actual founder of the whole discipline of postcolonial theory with publication of hugely influential study Orientalism (1978) where he applied post-structuralism criticism on colonization.

He talks about orientalism as discourse where he represents the East for the Western people. How the colonized are shown? As less educated, inferior, weak and unable to run their own business. He defines orientalist as western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient. Orientalism includes all texts produced during colonialism, even newspapers, travel books and legal texts where is studied how Easterners are represented by such texts. He also speaks of objectification and was criticized for this over-pessimism since he showed no way out.

He answered the critics in his study Culture and Imperialism (1993) where he, being a literary critic, focuses on how to read texts differently. He devised a strategy of reading against the grain which means reading against the intention of the author. Instead of focusing on how text is coherent and quality, the reader focuses on absences, silences, gaps and inconstancies. It is a deconstructive process but can be very revealing! You take a text from Western canon and read it from native perspective “against the grain” totally differently. Natives can even ridicule the representation of natives themselves and express their own subjectivity by reshaping Western domination to their behefit (for example to analyze Robinson Crusoe with Friday as the main character).

In his essay Reflections on Exile Said says that exile is "terrible experience...rift forced between a human being and a native place...the loss of something left behind forever." Said says that exiles are resentment of non-exiles because they will always feel out of place. He differentiate between exile = banishment, one becomes an outsider; refugee = innocent, left because of political reasons; expatriates = voluntarily leaves to live in foreign country for personal reasons. Said argues that exile is not a matter of choice, it just happens to you. He shared an opinion that exile can find a true home only in writing. Then he claims that only exiled person can understand exile fully and that "exile is never the state of being satisfied" as they always feel differently in the foreign country and is always aware of at least two cultures. He describes that "being rooted" is perhaps the most important need of the human soul.

WOLE SOYINKA (*1934)

He was born in Nigeria, is both a creative writer and literary critic, a professor of dramaturgy and was even with awarded Nobel.  In 1960s he got in trouble with a war in which a part of Nigeria wanted to become an independent state called Biafra. Most intellectuals (Achebe as well) sided with Biafra but the separatist state did not last long and was assimilated back. These rebel-intellectuals were considered dangerous and Soyinka ended in prison for two years. He wrote a prison diary about the complicated war because it was surprisingly a global situation, involving Britain, SSSR and USA as well.

Death and the King's Horseman (1976) is a play based on true events that happened in 1946 in Yoruba city of Nigeria during the British colonial rule. In the preface Soyinka states that his play is often explained as clash of cultures but he considers it a prejudicial label because every stereotypical label limits the reading. The confrontation in the play is largely metaphysical, contained in the human mind of Elesin and the universe of the Yoruba mind - the world of the living, the dead and the unborn, and the passage which links all - transition. The colonial factor only a catalyst to events. The author advices future directors to focus on threnodic stage atmosphere of death, funeral rituals and mourning. However, he is being partly self-ironic since he knows nobody is going to ignore the colonial clash of cultures aspect.

According to the Yoruba tradition, the death of a chief must be followed by the ritual suicide of the chief's horseman, because the horseman's spirit is essential to helping the chief's spirit ascend to the afterlife. Otherwise, the chief's spirit will wander the earth and bring harm to the Yoruba people. The beginning of the play documents the process of this ritual, with horseman Elesin living out his final day. He is celebrated by his people and can ask for anything he wants. When he sees a beautiful woman, he demands her as his bride in order to feel lighter on the passage, arguing his seed is heavy. Women of the market agree to it, such a baby would be exceptional unity of two worlds because Elesin is already considered dead.

Meanwhile a local British district officer Simon Pilkins and his wife Jane Pilkins prepare for a fancy ball. They decided to wear ancestral masks of death and native sergeant Amusa is scared. He is a Muslim so not a pagan anymore but still cannot bear to talk to them in those masks. Amusa informs that there is a kind of riot in the city market and someone is going to commit murder. Joseph, a young servant boy who has been Christianized, also acts with horror upon looking at the two. Not even he forgot his native religion completely.

Nevertheless, he specifies that it is not a murder but a ritual suicide and the horseman is in fact a father of a clever young man Olunde who was sent to study in England. When they ask about the loud drumming, he is hesitant to answer. Simon gets angry, saying: “Don’t tell me all that holy water nonsense also wiped out your tribal memory.” He cynically insulted both pagan and his own Christian tradition which is terribly shocking for converted Joseph since what message does it give? The British do not believe their own superior religion, they only exercise their political power.

Simon seems hesitant to intervene, he would in case of murder but a suicide? However, he cannot allow the riot because the prince is visiting so he sends his men to arrest Elesin for the night. Westerners imagine a ritual suicide as something cruel and violent but there is no cruelty in a Yoruba sacrifice. The chanting language is imaginative and poetic and Elesin dances in trance. He is joining his ancestors, his death is only a passage to better world and he will gain eternal glory because his sacrifice will benefit also the world of the living.

Olunde returns for the father’s funeral from Britain and meets Jane at the ball. He made a lot of observations on the Western culture and is not surprised by the Pilkings wearing ancestral masks as he remarks: “I discovered that you have no respect for what you do not understand.” It is Olunde who had the upper hand in the conversation, he gave up on explaining the whites – they are those stupid ones. Jane tried to convince him that Simon wants to in fact protect his father but Olunde answers: “He has protection. No one can undertake what he does tonight without the deepest protection the mind can conceive. What can you offer him in place of his peace of mind, in place of the honour and veneration of his own people?”

There is WW2 at the time in Europe but peace and quiet in Nigeria. Olunde mentions a captain who self-sacrificed for the harbour people because his ship loaded with ammunition became dangerous. How come his deed is considered heroic but not a sacrifice of Elesin? He does it for the community as well, although, the spiritual sacrifice is not that evident. Jane states that life should never be thrown deliberately away which is really ironic in a nonsense war where millions die. Olunde observed that: “By all logical and natural laws this war should end with all the white races wiping out one another. Then I slowly realised that your greatest art is the art of survival. But at least have the humility to let others survive in their own way.” And declares: “I saw nothing that gave you the right to pass judgement on other people and their ways.”

Elesin is arrested and brought to the residence to be locked up. He is ashamed for he could not do the ritual. Surprisingly, nobody blames the officers, his son, women of the market, the tribe…all blame Elesin for being weak. The officers did interfere but the main struggle happened in Elesin’s mind that was not strong enough. The intervention is just a poor excuse for Elesin since he could fight back during arresting but did not resist at all. Now he feels guilty for betraying the community.

What made him so weak? One possibility is the lust for bride and the simple desire for life. However, it is the intervention of officers that weakened him by a blasphemy thought that there might be a hand of gods in strangers’ intervention. The Yoruba lived in their mythology so how to explain these white aliens? What if gods might want that intervention? Is this a test? New will of ancestors?

Olunde responsibly takes his place and the coming women already take his corpse to the cell. When Elesin sees him son, he commits suicide right away. He cannot take his rightful place of glory but maybe can redeem himself at least a bit. For Simon the whole incident meant only fulfilling his duty to calm the riot while his prince is staying, he did not worry about consequences, just one-night matter. However, he interfered with the spiritual life of Yoruba people which meant a disaster for their community. In the end, instead of just one sacrifice, two people had to die.

NGUGI WA THIONG’O (*1938)

Born into a modest peasant family in Kenya, Ngugi educated himself and became an intellectual, novelist, social and political activist and dramatist. He soon became popular as a central voice of Africa as continent, not only Kenya. He shocked the global public in 1960s when he became a university professor in Nairobi and renamed the Department of English to the Department of Literature, claiming that he will be looking at literature in relation to his own African tradition, not the other way around. This very innovative approach took African literature as central and studies everything in relation to THAT tradition.

His novel Petals of Blood (1977) is a pessimistic disillusioned account of independence that was eventually obtained but they cannot handle it. Nothing changed, white elite was replaced by black elite, peasants are still abused, it is tyranny rather than freedom and it all is just “flag waving independence.” For this critique, he was imprisoned since dictatorship did not like it. In prison he shocked the world once more because he decided to continue writing in his tribal language Gikuyu so his latter novels are only secondarily translated into English by someone else. Amnesty International managed to release him but he was forced into exile. He is such a provocative voice that upon his returning, he was nearly shot by an assassin at the airport.

Weep Not, Child (1964) is his first novel accounting the real events he is deliberately very simple and direct to deliver the message. Njoroge has a dream to attend school. His family is poor but his kind mother Nyokabi wants to fulfil son’s dream, buys him his first shirt and shorts and allows him to attend, even though they do not have money for his school lunches. Njoroge believes he can improve family’s conditions by getting education and wonders why would the whites leave their rich countries and come here. “You cannot understand a white man.”

Many Africans were forced to fight in WW1 but were not allowed fight for their own freedom. WW1 had no relevance for Africa, there was peace and quiet in Kenya. They did not hate Hitler because he did not do anything to them and they would even support him as the only one struggling against imperial Britain. Otherwise, they did not comprehend why white masters are fighting against each other.

Nyokabi is the second wife of Ngotho who was in WW1. His two wives Njeri and Nyokabi are good friends but he is careful because “women are fickle and jealous” but his household is calm, he does not have to beat them much. He prefers fat wives and does not understand why someone would prefer a thin one, although, his wives are not like that anymore. He is proud that his school will go to school. Mwihaki, a young girl, is a daughter of Jacobo, owner of the land on which the family lives. She takes him to school. Her older sister Lucia is a teacher. However, Nyokabi is angry that his son associates the daughter of the rich family. His mother wants him to learn to read, write and speak English so that he can achieve something.

Njoroge visits his brother Kamau who is a carpenter while Kamau is having a dispute. He claims that it is better to work for a white man because: “A white man is a white man. But a black man trying to be a white man is bad and harsh.” Later, Ngotho tell the family their creational myth where he reveals to the youngsters that this land originally belonged to them, not white masters. Njoroge is confused. The war took two Ngotho’s sons and for what?

Ngotho works for Mr Howlands who owns the land. He kind of hates him for owning of what is rightfully their but, nonetheless, working for him is the best option. He is a typical Kenyan settler, a man who got disillusioned after WW1 and escaped to Africa. His wife Suzannah was bored in England so she followed but got bored again in African and took pleasure in beating her servants. She had a son and a daughter but the son was killed in WW2 and her daughter turned to be a missionary. Fortunately, they had another son Stephen.

Njoroge likes learning and is good at reading. He still plays with Mwihaki who thinks that: “Europeans cannot be friends with black people. They are so high.” Everybody in the family supports Njoroge’s education as they believe it will benefit them all eventually. “You must learn to escape the condition under which we live.” “Education is everything.” Njoroge is eager to study and thinks he is destined for something big.

Nairobi is the big city with many jobs where a lot of young men venture for higher salary. But it is ownership of land that makes you rich, as many black people think. Kamau calls the whites robbers for they stole their land but they are some efforts for freedom already. Njoroge is bright so he soon gets to higher class together with Mwihaki and starts learning English under Lucia. A daughter of Mr Howlands inspects them but they greet her Sir. Lucia is angry, what I failure! Njoroge turns to reading pretty much anything but his favourite is the Bible where he finds justice, good deeds that bear fruits, kingdom of Heaven etc. He does not feel any disagreement with his mother’s stories, they both speak of human virtues.

The black people are preparing for a strike all over the country to get higher salaries with a motto: “Our sweat and blood are not so cheap. We too are human beings.” Mr Howlands threatens that he will immediately fire anyone who joins the strike. Nyokabi is afraid of losing husband’s job if the strike proves to be unsuccessful but Ngotho is determined to go. And the strike failed because Jacobo sided with the whites and turned a traitor to his black brethren. Ngotho attacked him and because of it lost his job and Jacobo moved him out of his land. Mwihaki was send to a boarding school far away, Njoroge continues his studies thanks to money of his working brothers but school is really far from his new home and many pupils have to travel many kilometres on foot every day.

Njoroge has a vision of a leader Jomo becoming Black Moses who would defend his people against white Pharaoh but he is arrested. Another wanted man, Dedan Kimathi, the leader of the African Freedom Army, is known for many wonderful tricks. Mau Mau is the movement for African freedom. When Jomo loses at his trial, the black people are even more determined to fight, believing law was created by the whites and the lawyers were bribed. In addition, Jacobo becomes a chief and Mr Howlands a District Officer. They symbolize everything the blacks hate – a black traitor and a white settler.

After that strike, Mr Howlands hates Africans, calling them savages. It is his land, he will not give it to them, nor his God. One day, a letter is found pinned on the school. Kimathi threatens that he will cut of the head of students if the school will not be closed. Njoroge is disillusioned – Mau Maus is supposed to defend the black! It is no longer clear who is killing who. But he does not leave school, nowhere is safe these days anyway and he wants to fight with his education against the white.

Violence is getting worse, people are being killed even for breaking curfew and the suspicion of being in Mau Mau. Then suddenly Njoroge meets Mwihaki again. She looks matured and wants to talks to him. Everybody avoids her because she is a daughter of Jacobo but he still takes her as his sister. They go to a church where they hear a preaching about Jesus’s judgment day. Will day like this ever come? Everybody changed and Mwihaki even claims that her father used to be kind to her and wants her to rebuild the country through education in the same way as Njoroge who takes it as his holy mission from God.

Jacobo receives a threatening note and thinks it comes from Ngothe. Mr Howlands becomes so blinded with hatred that he enjoys the black killing the black, hoping the rest who survive will be more obedient.  He enjoys this inter-fighting in the black community as the rule of imperialism is divide and rule. Boro, Ngotho’s oldest son, became himself a freedom fighter but he admits only fighting for revenge for his lost brothers. It is no longer a war for freedom: “Unless you kill, you'll be killed. So you go on killing and destroying. It's a law of nature. The white man too fights and kills with gas, bombs, and everything.”

As the only child in the neighbourhood, Njoroge passes the entrance exams to secondary school. Almost everybody contributes some money, he is seem as their hope. Njoroge is even more focused on his holy mission, claiming the country needs people like him and Mwihaki. Siriana secondary school is truly a place of learning and Njoroge is puzzled to find white teachers who are friendly and helping towards him. It is the mark of psychological damage that he perceives as distorted kind behaviour which should be normal.

And his classmates want pretty much the same thing as him – education unites them and student from different class do not fight each other. Unexpectedly, he meets Stephen Howlands and realizes even this rich young boy desired company, even from black boys. Njoroge feels sympathy and remarks: “It's strange how you do fear something because your heart is already prepared to fear because maybe you were brought up to fear that something, or simply because you found others fearing.” Stephen will be soon send to England together with his mother, though.

The headmaster is righteous man but: “He believed that the best, the really excellent could only come from the white man. He brought up his boys to copy and cherish the white man's civilization as the only hope of mankind and especially of the black races.” Suddenly one day, Njoroge is brought for interrogation and severely beaten. It seems someone had killed Jacobo and his father is the first suspect on the list. Nogotho really does confess the crime and dies, Njoroge is shocked from all these experiences as: “That showed him a different world from that he had believed himself living in. For these troubles seemed to have no end, to have no cure.” And: “That day for the first time, he wept with fear and guilt. And he did not pray.”

It is revealed that Boro killed the chief but his father took the guild upon himself to protect his son. Boro goes also after Mr Howlands but the District Officer no longer feels like struggling. He realized that killing of Ngotho did not give him any real satisfaction. He also “dreamt of a world that needed him, only to be brought face to face with the harsh reality of life in the First World War.”

Njoroge meets Mwihaki and declares his love and a plan to escape to another country for she is his last hope. She loves him as well but do not want to flee with him, stating they are no longer children and have responsibility. “Njoroge had now lost faith in all the things he had earlier believed in, like wealth, power, education, religion. Even love, his last hope, had fled from him.”

Njoroge is a tragic hero. He has visions and makes an effort to realize them but becomes a victim of outer circumstances. Still, he takes blame for the actions of his family since he was raised in communal identity. In despair, Njoroge decides to commit suicide by hanging but his mothers find him and prevent him. In addition, he remembered that he has to take care of them as promised to his father.

His inner voice tells him he is a coward but he is brave to live and accept responsibility. To commit suicide would be a cowardice escape in fact! This inner voice might be rather a distorted voice of the whole Kenya resigning. There is no justification for violence so refusing violence is also a form of resistance. He was not dragged home, he symbolically opened the door for his mother which possibly shows hope as act of generosity. The vision of liberation is through education not barbaric illiterate violence.

GAYATRI SPIVAK (*1942)

She is an Indian literary theorist. Being extremely difficult to read, she combines various aspects of post-structuralism into a unique feminine voice. Previous male thinkers seen meeting of the colonizer and the colonized as a rather monolithic affair (superior vs weak) but Spivak claims it is very heterogeneous with many paradoxes and contradiction on both sides.

As a philosopher, she is connected to Indian thinkers called Subaltern Studies who are interested in retrieving history that is forgotten, silenced or marginalized because it does not fit into an official dominating narrative of history. The most oppressed group in India are the untouchable, the lowest caste forced to eat rats and members of higher castes are not allowed even touch them. History forgets them completely and the best example of subaltern would be the untouchable women.

In the essay Can the Subaltern Speak? Spivak states that we represent these people but do not give them permission to speak for themselves. In the same time, she provocatively undercuts her own argument because this essay is, in fact, just another form of silencing as she uses her lucky privilege of being an academic to analyze these people. This deep paradox is a proof that the subaltern cannot speak for themselves.

MONICA ALI (*1967)

She was born in Bangladesh. Her debut novel Brick Lane was adapted into a film. After mother’s suicide, a 17-year-old Bangladeshi girl, Nazneem, arrives in 1980s London, leaving behind her beloved sister and home, for an arranged marriage with 42-year man Chanu Ahmed. She lives trapped within the four walls of her flat in East London – Brick Lane, and in a loveless marriage. She soon gives birth to two daughters, Rukshana and Bibi, and a boy but he dies. Her sister through letters tells Nazneed of her life back in Bangladesh, stumbling from one adventure to the next.

When her husband loses his job, she takes up sewing and meets with Karim, who supplies her dress material, and both get attracted to each other. Racism escalates after the events of September 11, Chanu considers to move back. Nazneen must now chose between living in their apartment of Brick Lane, continuing her affair or even getting married to Karim or accompanying her husband back home. She stays and Mr Ahmed says the children "your mother is in charge," thus giving her the leading role.

Mr Ahmed is waiting for promotion that will never come, he was idealists, expecting best of Britain but for the British he is just another immigrants, even though he is very educated. This failure broke his self-esteem, he became a jobless broken dreamer. The older daughter has a split identity. She was born in England but raised in a Muslim family. She is rebellious as any teenager would be but Muslims do not expect women to be rebellious. Father tells her to fit in which she does in English school where she is exposed to the Western culture but in home she has to behave.

Nazneem earns only a pound of a pair of jeans which reveals cheap almost slave work of immigrants. For 16 years she was only going to the marker and home and daydreaming about being back home in the village with her sister. She does not remember the poverty of her old home, only clear skies and the fields. She thinks that the adventurous of her sister is perfect as said in letters but the letters do not reveal the ugliness of sister's life. She makes her own choices after meeting Karim who sees her female beauty.

The local community wanted to fit in but after 9/11 they were all seen as terrorists so they reacted to it be turning radical. Before they wore Western clothes but then Bengali clothes and grew beards to publicly let out their identity. There is a conflict between the first and the second generation. One would expect the second generation to be assimilated but it was them who searched for roots and became fed up by the culture that rejected them even though they were raised in it.

It is a "brown man's burden" of generation that was educated about the British culture by the British themselves but when they moved to Britain, the British rejected them and their education was not appreciated. The British Empire "civilised" them to be like them but educated immigrants soon realised that the common British people know little about their own English literary canon.

  

SALMAN RUSHDIE /rušdi/

He is a controversial figure, the most famous postcolonial writer, born in Bombai. He is a celebrity now, his wife is a supermodel and he combines Indian narration with west culture. He has excellent Oxford education so he is privileged unlike impoverished immigrants he represents in his fiction.

In 1988 he wrote Satanic Verses which were controversial for the Muslim community because he offended the whole religion. It led to the global debate about author's rights to being provocative. Iranian leader Allatolah declared a fatwa (death sentence) on Rushdie which means that every Muslim has right to kill Rushdie so he has to live under official protection of British government since he is a British citizen. East, West is a collection of short stories written in his troubled period or fatwa.

The short story The Courter is set in 1960s Britain and features life of minorities relation to their cultural roots, love, racism, growing up and generation gap. The narrator is a 16-year-old boy raised by Mary, sex-driven adolescent who attended boarding school in England before the whole family moved as well. Father decided to take the family to England and did not discussed it like all his decisions, he expects obedience. Mary was took as a nanny. The narrator as the third generation of immigrants absorbs British pop-culture in active search for identity like his English friends and he behaves as normal Western teenager and relates to British pop-culture not the Bombai one. He has problems with finding his identity, ha cannot reconnect with his Indian origin so he considers it pointless to search for roots. He is a cultural hybrid, like a bridge between two cultures.

Mecir was born somewhere in Eastern Europe, he is of the same age as Mary. Mary wants to return home but Mecir does not. He is a porter in the block of luxurious apartments for wealthy immigrantat. Mary, who cannot speak English well, mispronounces his profession of a porter to the "courter" but Mecir likes it and wants to become her courter. He is nicknamed Mixed-up by the boy narrator to simplify his name. He used to be a grand master of chess but now he is just a ruined old man. Certainly-Mary is a tiny Indian woman, 60-year-old who often says “certainly” instead of simple yes/no. The porter Mecir who was never sure of anything anymore is stunned by her sureness. Mary is struggling with British culture and the language. England breaks her health and she needs to return home. She learns chess with astonishing speed even though she cannot read or write properly.

The game of chess is their common language to communicate, the boards is their love affair. On the chess boards, they are equal without language barrier. Mary never married, porter was a widower. They are flirting in the game, the war of chess is transformed into an art of love. Mary's employer family have a big flat but she as only a nanny has to sleep on a mat in the hall. The father in the office reads Encyclopaedia Britannica and Reader’s Digest and treats Mary and the porter as something very low, he is a snob. When he mispronounces at pharmacy “nipples” (he also has troubles with English) and the girl hits him, she becomes legendary for the family members since she opposed their strong father.

Their life in the apartment block is disrupted when some gagsters appear to talk to one of rich tenants. They do not care which Indian hurt their whores, he just see narrator's mother and thinks she must be the wife of that bastard. Mecir must lie about the tenant who did it but he is badly injured for that. He gets only 5 pounds for his "service" but he cannot go to the police since he would be fired. Mecir refused to play chess anymore and Mary is heartbroken to look after her devastated lover. Her health worsens but doctors do not reveal any specific illness. She says that she is homesick but she might be broken because Mecir is broken. The boy narrator does not care about the porter, he is angry because his nanny returns to India. Then his father decides to move to Pakistan, again without the discussion with his family but the narrator stays at school in England. He becomes a citizen, the British passport sets him free, he is finally allowed to make his own choices but the rope is tightening the narrator – choose, East or West? He refuses to choose. A year later he goes to visit the old porter but another porter opens with no information about Mixed-up.

HANIF KUREISHI /honey konejši/

He was born into a very rich family, his father was a Pakistani, his mother the English. He became an author and a screenwriter. His first semi-autobiographical novel The Buddha of Suburbia became a success. It depicts a life of a mixed-race teenager who is desperate to escape suburb South London but he meets prejudice and racism in his attempt to find his identity.

My Son the Fanatic is a short story that was later adapted into a film directed by Kureishi. The themes are cultural assimilation, father-son relationship, religion and the search for identity. It depicts a Pakistan family who moved to Britain in 1950s when many immigrants were invited to rebuild after the WW2. The father, Parvez, wants to integrate into the British society and becomes a secular Muslin. He just wanted a better life than the old in poverty in Pakistan. Parvez worries because his son Ali’s behaviour has changed significantly. Parvez goes to his taxi to drive home. In his car he finds Bettina, a prostitute, who drives with Parvez very often. Since Parvez has defended Bettina from a client who had attacked her, they take care of each other. Parvez tells Bettina what he has observed and that he assumes that his son does all these strange things because he is drug addicted. Bettina instructs Parvez on how he has to observe his son to find out if there is anything physically wrong with him. However, after a few days of observations Parvez decides that his son appears totally healthy. The only physical change Parvez observes is that Ali is growing a beard. And it turns out that his son does not sell his things, he just gives them away.

Parvez notices that Ali prays five times a day, although he had not been brought up to be religious. Parvez decides to invite his son to dinner to talk to him about his recent behaviour. Parvez drinks a lot during this meeting and they start to argue. Ali criticizes his father’s way of life because in his opinion his father is "too implicated in Western civilization" and breaks the Koran’s rules by drinking alcohol and eating pork. But it is not only religion, his father is simply immoral - drinking a lot and having friendship with a prostitute. Ali tells his father that he is going to give up his studies because from his point of view, “Western education cultivates an anti-religious attitude.” Parvez feels he has lost his son and wants to tell him to leave the house but Bettina changes his mind and Parvez resolves to try to understand what is going on in his son’s mind. A few days later while Parvez is driving in his taxi with Bettina he sees his son walking. Parvez asks Ali to come in and drive with them. In the car, Bettina starts to have a conversation with Ali, but as she tries to explain to Ali that his father loves him very much, Ali becomes angry and offends Bettina. Back at home Parvez drinks a lot of alcohol because he is furious at his son. He walks into Ali’s room and attacks his son who does not show any kind of reaction to protect himself. When Parvez stops hitting him, Ali asks his father: "So who's the fanatic now?"

Ali turned to Islam, the religion of his homeland because he tried to assimilate but Britain rejected him. He sees corruption in the British ways his father adopted so willingly. He even rejects his musical hobby since it is a western thing. Ali grows beard, changes clothes and looks at his father with strict eyes. It was a huge phenomenon; while the first generation assimilated, the second generation, who met with constant prejudice even though they were raised as the British, turned back to their roots and became radical as a response. Parvez things his works to give his son better future but he provides only material things, not moral values. Britain is too materialistic, too free without moral limitations. Ali chooses to enter into limitations of religion. Parvez's wife mentally stayed in Pakistan, at home, they are Muslims. Parvez rejected only religion but he still treats his wife as a servant. That's why he feels as a Westerner with independent Bettina.

HOMI BHABHA /baba/

His surname is a traditional surname of higher caste. His was a postcolonial theorist who wrote a collection of very influential essays The Location of Culture (1994). He is interested in the meeting between the colonizer and the colonized and pays attention to new identities and culture which result from that meeting. He is the first to state that the identity of the colonizer-master is also transformed.

He put in use two terms of postcolonial theory:

Mimicry  = an idea in late 19 century that British should create a new elite in colonized countries with the British clothes and manner who would imitate masters. This was achieved, this new "minic man" could imitate the British so well that the only aspect off was the colour of the skin. This created a mirror and the master can see strange image since his own British identity is ridiculed and disturbed.

Hybrid = new cultural ethnic identity which results from the meeting between cultures. It can be seem in metropolitan cities with communities of immigrants, cross-marriages and the second generation of immigrant children. They continue their own culture but the place affects them.

AIJAZ AHMAD

He is a critic of postcolonial theory, Indian Muslin origin, who says that it is just fashion that does not help those countries of the third world. He states three objections: (especially against Said, Spivak and Bhabha who are called the holy trinity of postcolonial theory)

1.       If you look at authors, they are excellent theorists but they are not qualified to represent those poor communities because they are well off US academics.

2.       They are criticising continuing suppression of “freed” countries but they are at the same time celebrating new hybrid cultures. They are promoting globalism and mixing cultures but it does not have liberating effect on the people.

3.       Postcolonial critics only focus on cultural aspects and literary texts. Their resistance is only reading texts but what kind of resistance is that? How analyzing texts can improve anything?

JOHN MAXWELL COETZEE (*1940) /kutsi:/

He is a prolific South African novelist, essayist and an advocate of animal rights, awarded Nobel Prize in Literature. His most famous novel is Disgrace about a South African professor of English David Lurie who loses his status when he disgraced himself after seducing one of his students. Being dismissed from his teaching position, he finds refuge at the farm of his daughter who takes care of abandoned dogs. Their farm is attacked by the natives, the professor badly hurt and his daughter raped. He finds redemption in taking care of dogs who are as useless and unwanted as he is.