THE POST COLONIAL NOVELS: A STUDY

Submitted by:

Accaito Sarania (03)

Akshat Kumar (05)

Gaurav Jaglan (19)

Teacher In-charge:

Mrs. Aparajita Dutta Hazarika

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY AND JUDICIAL ACADEMY, ASSAM

26 April 2014
 SUPERVISOR’S CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Project report titled “THE POST COLONIAL NOVELS: A STUDY” has been
submitted by Accaito Sarania (ID NO-03), Akshat Kumar (ID NO-05), Gaurav Jaglan (ID NO-19) as a
part of their B.A., LL.B (Hons.) degree course in this University. This Project Report is their bonafide
creation and has not been presented or submitted in any other university for whatsoever reasons.

SIGNATURE DATE: 26th April, 2014

Mrs. Aparajita Dutta Hazarika

STUDENT CERTIFICATE
It’s hereby certified that the project titled “THE POST COLONIAL NOVELS: A STUDY” is a piece of
original research undertaken by us. It is further certified that no part of this project has been submitted
by us for any other purpose whatsoever.

Place: Guwahati Signatures of the Candidates

Date: 26th April, 2014 1. Accaito Sarania (ID NO-03)

2. Akshat Kumar (ID NO-05)

3. Gaurav Jaglan (ID NO-19)

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

On the completion of this project report, at the very beginning of my address of acknowledgement we
would like to place on record our sincere gratitude towards all those people who have been instrumental
in its making. We would like to extend our heartiest thanks to Mrs Aparajita Dutta Hazarika as our
instructor for providing her valuable guidance, unfailing help and timely negotiations and criticisms on
the topic. She assisted us during the time of research on the topic and supervised us for the completion
of this project.

Last but not the least; I would like to thank our Hon’ble Vice Chancellor Prof. (Dr.) Gurjeet Singh, for
giving us the privilege and opportunity to undertake this project.

1. Accaito Sarania (ID NO-03)

2. Akshat Kumar (ID NO-05)
3. Gaurav Jaglan (ID NO-19)

2nd Semester Students

B.A.LL.B (Hons.)
NLUJA, Assam
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction
1.1. Research Problem
1.2. Literature Review
1.3. Scope and Objective
1.4. Methodology
2. What is Post-Colonial Literature?
2.1. Introduction
2.2. Concerns and Characteristics
2.3. Post-Colonial Theory
2.4. Post-Colonial Theorist
2.4.1. Gayetri Chakravarti
2.4.2. Edward Said
2.4.3. Homi K.Bhabha
3. Postcolonial Criticism
4. Postcolonial Writers and Novels
4.1. Chinua Achebe
4.2. Earl Lovelace
4.3. Jhumpa Lahiri
4.4. R.K. Narayan
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
 CHAPTER-1
INTRODUCTION

In a broad sense, postcolonial literature is writing which has been “affected by the imperial process
from the moment of colonization to the present day”. In India’s case, this includes novels, poetry, and
drama which were written both during and after the British Raj or “Reign,” which came to a formal
conclusion with Indian Independence in August 1947. Although writing from India and other formerly
colonized countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica, Pakistan, and Singapore has distinctive features,
postcolonial literature shares some significant concerns and characteristics. If we are to give the
definition of post-colonial literature, it is the writing came after empire and critically scrutinizes the
colonial relationship, resists colonial perspectives and it is deeply marked by experiences of cultural
exclusion and division under empire. If we think post-colonial period as a nationalist movement, the
text, especially novel genre, was a moving spirit in the nationalist struggle. Every new instance of
independence required that the nation be constructed in the collective imagination. As Benedict
Anderson’s incisive analysis suggests “nation is a social artifice – symbolic formation rather than a
natural essence. It exists in so far as the people who make up the nation have in mind, or experience it
as citizens, soldiers, readers etc.”

1.1 Research Questions

1. What are the main characteristics of post-colonial literature?
2. How has post-colonial writing developed in different geographical, cultural and political contexts?
3. How have individual authors responded to key historical and cultural developments?

1.2 Literature Review

Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge,
1989.

The Empire Writes Back was the first major theoretical account of a wide range of post-colonial texts
and their relation to the larger issues of post-colonial culture, and remains one of the most significant
works published in this field. The authors, three leading figures in post-colonial studies, open up
debates about the interrelationships of post-colonial literatures, investigate the powerful forces acting on
language in the post-colonial text, and show how these texts constitute a radical critique of Eurocentric
notions of literature and language. This diverse and powerful body of literature has established a
specific practice of post-colonial writing in cultures as various as India, Australia, the West Indies and
Canada, and has challenged both the traditional canon and dominant ideas of literature and culture. This
book is brilliant not only for its incisive analysis, but for its accessibility for readers new to the field.

1.3 The Scope and Objective

Since post-colonial writers often respond to particular historical events, postcolonial literature is
intimately entwined with the contexts in which it is written; indeed, part of the purpose of this book is to
provide a sense of the various contexts of post-colonial literature. This is certainly not to argue that
writing is a mere by-product of history (the written or performed word is always the primary focus), but
to show how different writers are influenced by, respond to and perhaps shape the societies in which
they live. The global nature of post-colonial literature means that the reader needs to be aware of a
variety of contexts. Because of the influence of migration and the availability of global travel, writers
may not belong to or identify with one geographical region, but cross both regional and cultural
boundaries through their writing. Though there are issues, such as the use of the English language,
which are common across the globe, much post-colonial writing reflects the concerns of the particular
region in which it is written. In addition to this, the British empire was a far from uniform operation,
differing greatly in the various regions.
 1. What are the main characteristics of post-colonial literature?
 2. How has post-colonial writing developed in different geographical, cultural and political
contexts?
 3. How have individual authors responded to key historical and cultural developments?

1.4. Research Methodology

Doctrinal research methodology has been used in writing the paper. Numerous books regarding the
concerned topic have been consulted as well as a large number of articles written by several renowned
authors have been consulted.
 CHAPTER-2
WHAT IS POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE?

2.1. Introduction
Post-colonial literature is a body of literary writing that responds to the intellectual discourse of
European colonization in the Asia, Africa, Middle East, the Pacific, and other post-colonial areas
throughout the globe. Post-colonial literature addresses the problems and consequences of the de-
colonization of a country and of a nation, especially the political and cultural independence of formerly
subjugated colonial peoples; it also covers literary critiques of and about post-colonial literature, the
undertones of which carry, communicate, and justify racialism and colonialism. 1 But most
contemporary forms of post-colonial literature present literary and intellectual critiques of the post-
colonial discourse by endeavouring to assimilate post-colonialism and its literary expressions.

Post-colonial literature is a large topic. Though post-colonial writing is clearly a response to empire, it
should not, however, be defined purely against it. As ‘post-’ implies, it is also the literature written after
the end of formal colonial rule. The British retreat from empire after the Second World War and the
gaining of independence by the vast majority of its colonies (those, such as the Falkland Islands, which
are still colonies, are so by choice). Internal conflict has been one legacy of colonialism, particularly in
countries such as India or Nigeria where traditionally isolated or conflicting groups were brought within
national boundaries created by colonialists. On one level, post-colonial literature is an expression of
these crises as well as a testimony to those who resist them. In an important way, it also presents
alternative perspectives of Third World countries to those presented on the television screens of the
West. Post-colonial literature should be clearly distinguished from colonial literature, ‘colonial writing’
is writing produced by authors who belong to the colonizing power (white writing about India, Africa or
the Caribbean) and written before independence in the relevant region. Colonial writing also comes in
many shapes and forms; it covers a large time frame, from the 16th to 20th centuries, and colonial
writers are certainly not uniform in their depiction or opinion of empire. Though it is only possible to
include a small amount of colonial writing in this book, what can be included is there to provide key
examples of its kind and to be seen in relation to the writing of post-colonial authors. Colonial writing

1
Hart & Goldie 1993, p. 155.
can act as a backdrop highlighting the particular concerns of post-colonial authors, who have, in various
ways, responded to it.

Post-colonial literary criticism re-examines colonial literature, especially concentrating upon the social
discourse, between the colonizer and the colonized, that shaped and produced the literature. In
Orientalism (1978), Edward Saïd analyzed the fiction of Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, and
Lautréamont (Isidore-Lucien Ducasse), and explored how they were influenced, and how they helped to
shape the societal fantasy of European racial superiority. Post-colonial fiction writers deal with the
traditional colonial discourse, either by modifying or by subverting it, or both.

An exemplar post-colonial novel is Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys, a predecessor story to
Jane Eyre (1847), by Charlotte Brontë, a literary variety wherein a familiar story is re-told from the
perspective of a subaltern protagonist, Antoinette Cosway, who, within the story and the plot, is a
socially oppressed minor character who is renamed and variously exploited. As such, in post-colonial
literature, the protagonist usually struggles with questions of Identity — social identity, cultural identity,
national identity, etc. — usually caused by experiencing the psychological conflicts inherent to cultural
assimilation, to living between the old, native world and the dominant hegemony of the invasive social
and cultural institutions of the colonial imperialism of a Mother Country.

The “anti-conquest narrative” recasts the natives (indigenous inhabitants) of colonized countries as
victims rather than foes of the colonisers.2 This depicts the colonised people in a more human light but
risks absolving colonisers of responsibility for addressing the impacts of colonisation by assuming that
native inhabitants were "doomed" to their fate.3

2.2. Concern and Characteristics of Postcolonial Literature4

Concerns

2
Revie, Linda L. (2003). The Niagara Companion: Explorers, Artists and Writers at the Falls, from Discovery through the
Twentieth Century. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 95
3
ibid

4
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge, 1989.
1) Reclaiming spaces and places
Colonialism was, above all, a means of claiming and exploiting foreign lands, resources, and people.
Enslavement, indentured labor, and migration forced many indigenous populations to move from the
places that they considered “home”. Postcolonial literature attempts to counteract their resulting
alienation from their surroundings by restoring a connection between indigenous people and places
through description, narration, and dramatization.

2) Asserting cultural integrity

During colonization, the indigenous cultures of those countries subjected to foreign rule were often
sidelined, suppressed, and openly denigrated in favor of elevating the social and cultural preferences
and conventions of the colonizers. In response, much postcolonial literature seeks to assert the richness
and validity of indigenous cultures in an effort to restore pride in practices and traditions that were
systematically degraded under colonialism.

3) Revising history
Colonizers often depicted their colonial subjects as existing “outside of history” in unchanging, timeless
societies, unable to progress or develop without their intervention and assistance. In this way, they
justified their actions, including violence against those who resisted colonial rule. Revising history to
tell things from the perspective of those colonized is thus a major preoccupation of postcolonial writing.

Characteristics

1) Resistant descriptions

Postcolonial writers use detailed descriptions of indigenous people, places, and practices to counteract
or “resist” the stereotypes, inaccuracies, and generalizations which the colonizers circulated in
educational, legal, political, and social texts and settings.

2) Appropriation of the colonizers’ language

Although many colonized countries are home to multiple indigenous languages—in India, for example,
more than 12 languages exist alongside English—many postcolonial writers choose to write in the
colonizers’ “tongue”. However, authors such as Arundhati Roy deliberately play with English,
remolding it to reflect the rhythms and syntax of indigenous languages, and inventing new words and
styles to demonstrate mastery of a language that was, in a sense, forced upon them.

3) Reworking colonial art-forms

Similarly, authors such as Arundhati Roy rework European art-forms like the novel to reflect indigenous
modes of invention and creation. They reshape imported colonial art-forms to incorporate the style,
structure, and themes of indigenous modes of creative expression, such as oral poetry and dramatic
performances.

Other characteristics are as follows:-

4. Interacting with the traditional colonial discourse

5. Critical look at imperialism and its legacy

6. Reclaiming the past

7. Searching for cultural and personal identity

8. Self-reflection

9. Style often ironic

10. Approach eclectic, political and egalitarian

2.3. Postcolonial Theory5

Postcolonial theory is a sustained attention to the imperial process in colonial and neo-colonial
societies, and an examination of the strategies to subvert the actual material and discursive effects of the
process. It begins from the very first moment of colonial contact, and is the discourse
of oppositionality which colonialism brings into being. Although it is almost hopelessly diverse, there
are some identifiable characteristics of Postcolonial theory;

-Rejection on master-narrative of Western imperialism.

5
http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~engl4904/postcolonial.html
-Concern with the formation (within Western discursive practices) of the colonial and post-colonial
“subject”.

Representation and Resistance

In both conquest and colonization, texts and textuality play a major part. European texts wrote the non-
European subject as having an alterity. (which is taken as terror or lack). European texts and
representations were seen and thought of as normative. These texts were NOT accounts of people and
societies, but a projection of European fears and desires, under the guise of “scientific” or “objective”
knowledge (eg. Explorer narratives). These texts were then projected onto the colonized through formal
education or cultural relations.
Eg: Inaccurate stories about first nations peoples being taught to Native children in residential schools.

Postcolonialism and Post-Modernism

The rise of theoretical interest in Post-Col has coincided with the rise of Post-Modernism in Western
society. This has led to a considerable amount overlap and confusion between the two, largely because
the major project of Post-Mod is the deconstruction of the centralized, logocentric master narratives of
European Culture. This is similar to the major project in Postcolonialism of dismantling the
central/margin binarism of imperial discourse.
Some other overlaps of the two theories are;
-Decentering of discourse
-Focus on significance of language
-Focus on writing in the construction of experience
-Use of subversive strategies of mimicry/parody and irony.

Thus, Post-Colonialism is an incredibly diverse field of study, involving artists from all over the world.
There are precious few places which Colonialism has left untouched and this creates a fertile ground for
art which challenges and resists the Eurocentric norms of creative expression.
2.4. Post-Colonial Theorist

2.4.1. Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak

Background

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was born to a metropolitan middle-class family in Calcutta, West Bengal,
on February 24, 1942. She did her undergraduate in English at the University of Calcutta, and her
graduate work at Cornell. It is because of her birthplace, as well as having an Indian undergraduate and
an American postgraduate education, that results in Spivak being taken in the West as a spokesperson
for the “third world”, a label and position she rejects. Spivak has said that she “fell into comparative
literature,” because it was the only department that offered her money. Spivak has done many works
consisting of poststructuralist literary criticism, and deconstructivist readings of Marxism, Feminism,
and Post-Colonialism, as well as translations of the Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi. All of her works
mainly consist of interviews and essays, and she has not written any one book on any single issue of
post-colonial study. Spivak is most famous for her translation of and introduction to Derrida’s Of
Grammatology, which has been variously described as “setting a new standard for self-reflexivity in
prefaces”.

Her Work On Post-Colonial Theory

Post-colonial studies has placed critical theory in a new context, challenging its precepts and its
applicability outside the West. No critic better demonstrates this than Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.
Spivak’s essays detail the ways in which imperialism has constructed narratives of history, geography,
gender, and identity. Spivak has been criticized because she critiques using varying approaches
including feminist, Marxist, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and post-colonial theories. It is because of
this that each of these groups finds fault with her, because she does not fully commit herself to one
group or another.

2.4.2. Edward Said

Biographical Information

 Born in 1935 in Jerusalem, Palestine.

 Educated in Palestine and Egypt before moving to the United States

 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York

 Much of his critical focus has been on the work of Joseph Conrad. He published the book Joseph
Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography in 1966. His book The World, the Text, and the Critic,
published in 1983, also contains study on Conrad.

 Best known for his book Orientalism, published in 1979.

Orientalism

This work focuses on the binary: Orient vs. Occident or simply put East vs. West. Said concentrates on
the images and ideas of the Orient that are at the forefront of Western thought on the region. Said
believes that scholars and artists in the West failed to accurately describe the people, environment, and
the culture of the Orient. Rather than describe the Orient with fairness and accuracy, these people,
instead prescribed the qualities that the West would prefer to the Orient. This would allow the people
from the West viewing the Orient to define themselves by giving the people in the Orient qualities
which were considered inferior

The key to Said’s Orientalism is the understanding that any ideas of the East, or West, are man made.
They are products of the imaginations of generations of people and are not necessarily grounded in
reality.

2.4.3. Homi K. Bhabha

Biography
- Born into the Parsi community of Bombay
- Received his B.A. from Bombay University and his M.A., M.Phil., and D.Phil. from Christ Church,
Oxford University
Major Contributions
- Bhabha is a leading voice in postcolonial studies and is highly influenced by Western poststructuralist
theorists, notably Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault.
- points out how there is always ambivalence at the site of colonial dominance.
- uses concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity, andliminality to argue that cultural production is
always most productive where it is most ambivalent.

Ambivalence at the Site of Colonial Dominance

Homi Bhabha, as a postcolonialist, tries to deal with the in-between categories of cultural differences
across race, class, gender and, cultural traditions. Bhabha believes there is always ambivalence at the
site of colonial dominance. This means, "in reality any simple binary opposition between 'colonizers'
and 'colonised' or between races is undercut by the fact that there are enormous cultural and racial
differences within each of these categories as well as cross- overs"(Loomba105). The indigenous
groups are invited into the dominant culture but never become completely immersed into it resulting in
the sustaining of authority by the colonizer.

Hybridity
The indigenous Other cannot escape the boundaries of colonial discourse. Postcolonialists believe,
"skin colour has become the privileged marker of races which are thought of either 'black' or 'white' but
never big-eared' and 'small-eared'. The fact that only certain physical characteristics are signified to
define 'races' in specific circumstances indicates that we are investigating not a given, natural division
of the world's population, but the application of historically and culturally specific meanings
to the totality of human physiological variation...'races' are socially imagined rather than biological
realities"(Loomba121).
 CHAPTER 3
POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM

Postcolonial criticism usually involves the analysis of literary texts produced in countries and cultures
that have come under the control of European colonial powers at some point in their history.
Alternatively, it can refer to the analysis of texts written about colonized places by writers hailing from
the colonizing culture. In Orientalism (1978), Edward Said, a pioneer of postcolonial criticism and
studies, focused on the way in which the colonizing First World has invented false images and myths of
the Third (postcolonial) World—stereotypical images and myths that have conveniently justified
Western exploitation and domination of Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures and peoples. In the essay
"Postcolonial Criticism" (1992), Homi K. Bhabha has shown how certain cultures (mis)represent other
cultures, thereby extending their political and social domination in the modern world order.6
Postcolonial studies, a type of cultural studies, refers more broadly to the study of cultural groups,
practices, and discourses—including but not limited to literary discourses—in the colonized world. The
term postcolonial is usually used broadly to refer to the study of works written at any point after
colonization first occurred in a given country, although it is sometimes used more specifically to refer to
the analysis of texts and other cultural discourses that emerged after the end of the colonial period (after
the success of the liberation and independence movements). Among feminist critics, the postcolonial
perspective has inspired an attempt to recover whole cultures of women heretofore ignored or
marginalized—women who speak not only from colonized places but also from the colonizing places to
which many of them fled7. Postcolonial criticism has been influenced by Marxist thought, by the work
of Michel Foucault (whose theories about the power of discourses have influenced the new historicism),
and by deconstruction, which has challenged not only hierarchical, binary oppositions such as West/East
and North/South but also the notions of superiority associated with the first term of each opposition.

6
The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms by Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray. Copyright 1998 by Bedford
Books.
7
ibid
 CHAPTER 4
POSTCOLONIAL WRITERS AND NOVELS

4.1. Chinua Achebe8 (Ogidi, Nigeria, November 16, 1930)

Albert Chinualumogu Achebe is a Nigerian (Igbo Ibo) novelist and poet, who is considered to be the
father of modern African literature. In his novels and short stories he focuses on the effects of Western
customs and values of traditional African society. Unsentimental depictions of the social and
psychological disorientation accompanying the imposition of Western customs and values upon
traditional African society, as well as harsh criticism of politics of the independent Nigeria, brought him
acclaim by critics and popularity with readers. Use of his own language, blended with Standard English
and pidgin, Igbo vocabulary, proverbs, images, and speech patterns made him one of the most esteemed
African writers in the English language.
Achebe held numerous posts. In the 1960s he was the director of External Services in charge of the
Voice of Nigeria, along with the poet Christopher Okigbo, co-founded a publishing company at Enugu
in 1967, served as a diplomat from 1966 to 1968 for Biafra during the Nigerian civil war, from 1971
was founding editor of the influential journal “Okike,” was elected deputy national president of the
People's Redemption Party in 1983, held post of the director of Heineman Educational Books in
Nigeria, and in 1984 founded the bilingual magazine “Uwa ndi Igbo,” a valuable source for Igbo
studies.
He is the recipient of over 30 honorary degrees from universities in England, Scotland, Canada, South
Africa, Nigeria, and the United States. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the
Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the New Statesman Jock Campbell Prize, the Margaret Wrong Prize, the
Nigerian National Trophy, the Nigerian National Merit Award, Peace Prize (awarded by the German
Book Trade) and the Man Booker International award.

Major Works-

Things Fall Apart (1958)

Language choice

Achebe writes his novels in English because written Standard Igbo was created by combining various
dialects, creating a stilted written form. In a 1994 interview with The Paris Review, Achebe said, "the
8
http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=SGNJHAT5&tocp=16
novel form seems to go with the English language. There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers
from a very serious inheritance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican
mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Dennis. Archdeacon Dennis. He was a scholar. He
had this notion that the Igbo languages—which had very many different dialects—should somehow
manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects.
Because the missionaries were powerful, what they wanted to do they did. This became the law. But the
standard version cannot sing. There's nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It's heavy. It's wooden.
It doesn't go anywhere."

Achebe is noted for his inclusion of and weaving in of proverbs from Igbo oral culture into his writing.
This influence was explicitly referenced by Achebe in Things Fall Apart: "Among the Igbo the art of
conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten."

Culture

Prior to British colonization, the Igbo people as depicted in Things Fall Apart lived in a patriarchal
collective political system. Decisions were not made by a chief or by any individual but rather by a
council of male elders. Religious leaders were also called upon to settle debates reflecting the cultural
focus of the Igbo people. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore Nigeria. Though the
Portuguese are not mentioned by Achebe, their enduring influence can be seen in many Nigerian
surnames. The British entered Nigeria first through trade and then—during the Scramble for Africa—
established colonial governments at Lagos and Lokoja. The success of the colony led to Nigeria's
becoming a British protectorate in 1901. The arrival of the British slowly began to destroy the
traditional society. The British government would intervene in tribal disputes rather than allow the Igbo
to settle issues in a traditional manner. The frustration caused by these shifts in power is illustrated by
the struggle of the protagonist Okonkwo in the second half of the novel.

Despite converting to Christianity himself, Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart not only in response to the
then-common misrepresentations of his native people, but to show the dignity of the Igbo to his fellow
citizens. His depiction of the Igbo people's democratic institutions and culture allow them to be tested
"against the goals of modern liberal democracy and to have set out to show how the Igbo meet those
standards." While the Europeans in Things Fall Apart are depicted as intolerant of Igbo culture and
religion, telling villagers that their gods are not real (pp. 135, 162) the Igbo are seen as tolerant of other
cultures as a whole. For example, Uchendu is able to see that "what is good among one people is an
abomination with others" (p. 129).

Achebe is now considered to be the essential novelist on African identity, nationalism, and
decolonization. Achebe's main focus has been cultural ambiguity and contestation. The complexity of
novels such as Things Fall Apart depends on Achebe's ability to bring competing cultural systems and
their languages to the same level of representation, dialogue, and contestation.

4.2. Earl Lovelace9 is a Trinidadian novelist, journalist, playwright, and short story writer.
He is noted for his contribution to the literature of Trinidad and Tobago. His descriptive fiction about
West Indian culture combined with Trinidadian speech patterns intermingled with Standard English
helps to underline social changes and clash between urban and rural culture in his native country. He
deals with customs and beliefs of the region, such as the rejuvenating effects of carnival on the
inhabitants of a slum on the outskirts of Port of Spain, popular religion in rural areas, but also, he
explores the legacy of colonialism and slavery and the problems still faced by the country. His
characters are forced to choose between their own cultural heritage and promising rewards of
assimilation.
Lovelace worked at the Trinidad Guardian as a proof-reader and contributed to a number of periodicals

including Voices, South, and Wasafiri.

While Gods Are Falling

Exposing the political and cultural failure to address the challenges of postcolonial Trinidad, this
insightful novel portrays a world where the working man must face the crime and violence that is
destroying the social body. Walter Castle is dissatisfied with his regular job in the Laventille slum
in Port of Spain. As the prospect of promotion is bleak and crime and lawless youth become
insupportable, he dreams of going back to the village community he grew up in. Unfortunately, the
force of nostalgia is not supported by actual memories and as Walter abandons his dreams he is
forced to choose between turning into a drone who passes through life without leaving a mark, or

9
http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/viewArticle/344
 standing up for himself. Originally published in 1965, this story remains surprisingly contemporary
with its astringent critique of the top-down authoritarianism of nationalist politics.

4.3. Jhumpa Lahiri10 Vourvoulias (real name Nilanjana)

Is a contemporary Indian American writer. She focuses mainly on lives of immigrant population,
mostly Indians who live in and try to adapt to a western culture and in that way exist in two worlds: the
one they came from, and the new one they immigrated to. Through the lives of her parent she became
well acquainted with this environment, of the isolation and loneliness inside it usually due to the fact
that this population, although wants to adjust, is not ready to let go of their own tradition. In her stories
she address issues of identity and representation, arranged marriages, assimilation, loss of cultural
identification because the assimilation of their children into western culture leaves no room for their
own cultural orientation. Her debut collection, “Interpreter of Maladies,” was translated into twenty-
nine languages. For her work she won numerous prizes and awards, such as:

Trans Atlantic Award from the Henfield Foundation, O. Henry Award for short story PEN/Hemingway
Award (Best Fiction Debut of the Year), The New Yorker's Best Debut of the Year, and Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction for "Interpreter of Maladies,” Fisher Distinguished Writing Award for "Indian Takeout,” The
Best American Short Stories “Nobody’s Business,” and Guggenheim Fellowship.

The novel describes the struggles and hardships of a Bengali couple who immigrate to the United States
to form a life outside of everything they are accustomed to.

The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima leave Calcutta, India and settle in Central Square,
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Through a series of errors, their son's nickname, Gogol, becomes his
official birth name, an event that will shape many aspects of his life in years to come.

4.4. R. K. Narayan11

Real name Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Narayanaswami is one of the best known Indian writer in
English. He writes about ordinary people capturing their everyday lives in little towns of contemporary
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India. A master of portraying characters, he brings to life variety of individuals including simple folks
and all kinds of eccentrics. What makes him unique is the ability to depict the country’s reality in ever
changing world in attempt to blend traditional values and modernization showing the strength and
energy of his heroes who go through a number of often tragy-comic situations. His writing style is
simple, unpretentious, and witty, with straightforward plotting, a humoristic twist, subtle irony, and a
deep religious sensibility as well as use of Hindu folklore to help him emphasize the point. Although he
was criticized by some of his contemporaries as an easy-going writer, he achieved to be one of the most
read Indian writer. Numerous awards and recognitions make him and one of the most respected
internationally. His works were translated into every European language as well as Hebrew. He won
National Prize of the Sahitya Akademi, the Indian literary academy, for “The Guide” in 1958, Padma
Bhushan, a Indian award, for distinguished service to literature in 1964, the AC Benson Medal by the
Royal Society of Literature in 1980, and Padma Vibhushan in 2000. Also, he was an honorary member
of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters an was nominated to the Rajya Sabha — the
upper house of the Parliament of India — in 1989. His novels “The Guide”, “ Mr. Sampath” and “The
Financial Expert” were made into films, while his stories “Swami and Friends” and “The Vendor of
Sweets” were adapted into a television series “Malgudi Days”, called after Narayan’s imaginary town,
where numerous of his stories take place.

Malgudi Days

 East/West: The relationship between Jagan and her son Mali might be read as the clash between
Eastern and Western cultures. As characters, Jagan and Mali are contrasted in many ways: while
Jagan keeps a strict, religiously founded diet, Mali has begun eating beef and drinking alcohol after
his stay in America. While Jagan prefers to walk everywhere, Mali insists on getting a car. While
Jagan's labour is manual; he is a vendor of sweets, Mali want to go into industrial business.

 Generation gap: As one opposing British rule in his youth, and sticking to those ideals as a grown
man, Jagan fails to see that his son does not share those same ideals. It is not apparent whose fault it
is that Mali does not want to follow his father, his own or Jagan's.

The conflict between the old and young generation, their ideals and the generation gap makes 'Vendor
of Sweets' a memorable story. This novel was made as a TV serial in Hindi and subsequently dubbed
into English.
 CONCLUSION

This research work enlightens us about the main characteristics of the post colonial literature and how it
has succeeding in developing different geographical cultural and political regions. It furthermore throws
light on how different authors around the world like Chinua Achebe, Earl Lovelace, Jhumpa Lahiri and
R.K. Narayan responded and developed their art of writing with colonization and post colonization
effects as the center of writings. It makes us aware of how great an impact has colonization left on the
culture and minds of colonized. From this work we get to know about various post colonial theories and
theorist and their criticism to post colonial literature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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 Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge,
1989.
 Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back. New York: Routledge,
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 Feroza Jussawall. Kim, Huck and Naipaul: Using The Postcolonial Bildungsroman to (Re)define
Postcoloniality, October 1996
 Hart & Goldie 1993.

 Patrick bixby. Samuel beckett and the post colonial novel

 Revie, Linda L. (2003). The Niagara Companion: Explorers, Artists and Writers at the Falls,
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 The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms by Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray.
Copyright 1998 by Bedford Books.

Websites:-

 http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~engl4904/postcolonial.html

 http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/viewArticle/344

 http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/jhumpa-lahiri/

 http://www.academia.edu/2315121/RK_Narayan_As_A_Post-Colonial_Novelist

 http://www.epubbud.com/read.php?g=SGNJHAT5&tocp=16