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Anglophone postcolonial studies has been characterized by its secular nature. Yet as the first generation of scholars grapples with mortality, a yearning for spiritual meaning is emerging in many texts. This study synthesizes the sacred language used in these texts with critical theory in order to create a holistic frame for interpretive analysis.
List of contents
Introduction: Postcolonial Yearning 1. Travel Writing and Cultural Tourism: William Dalrymple's Nine Lives and Pankaj Mishra's An End to Suffering 2. Things Fall Apart and Wide Sargasso Sea : Revisiting Spirit, Rewriting Canon 3. Crossing Boundaries in Leila Ahmed's A Border Passage and Pico Iyer's Abandon 4. "Spiritual/Secular; Hmong/American": Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and Kao Kalia Yang's The Latehomecomer Epilogue: Towards an Ethical Epistemology of Language
About the author
Asha Sen is Professor in the Deptartment of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Report
"This is a book about grieving. How does one grieve in the West? In the academy, for that matter? In this beautifully conceptualized book, Sen identifies moments in postcolonial writing that seem to gesture towards ways of articulating the mystical in language. Her close readings are superb." - Anushiya Ramaswamy, Professor of English, Southern Illinois University, USA
