The Luxury of Nationalist Despair

The Luxury of Nationalist Despair
Author :
Publisher : Rodopi
Total Pages : 236
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9042014318
ISBN-13 : 9789042014312
Rating : 4/5 (312 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Luxury of Nationalist Despair by : A. J. Simoes da Silva

Download or read book The Luxury of Nationalist Despair written by A. J. Simoes da Silva and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2000 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a timely critique of the work of the Barbadian novelist George Lamming, examining the ways in which his novels exhibit the "luxury of nationalist despair" and exploring the tensions between his strongly voiced anti-colonialism and his ambiguously articulated politics of self. Although stressing the place occupied by Lamming and his work in the context of an anti-colonial first generation of 'nation-writing' that has emerged in the formerly colonized world over the past half-century, the study also addresses the novelist's problematic, reductive focus on a nationalist project that is ultimately deeply flawed - in essence, the result of an uneasy relationship between form and thesis. Lamming's continued struggle with the novel as a genre, especially with its ability to get beyond the cultural and political baggage of colonialism, demonstrates the power of one of his most poignant assertions: "the colonial experience [...] is a continuing psychic experience that has to be dealt with long after the actual situation formally 'ends'." Written from a postcolonial perspective, the study draws also on contemporary feminist criticism in order to examine Lamming's characteristically simplistic depiction of female characters in terms of a greater willingness to embody the neocolonial. The book starts by addressing the place Lamming's work occupies both within postcolonial writing at large and specifically within Caribbean literature. Subsequent chapters provide close textual readings of Lamming's six novels, paired in terms of their foregrounding of issues of race, gender and class. Despite a clear shift in Lamming's thematic focus on the rewriting of Caliban's project, with his last novel offering a basis for a re-imagining of the post/colonial encounter, there remains a perturbing inability to relinquish the privileged stance afforded the postcolonial intellectual in self-imposed exile (cultural, much more than geographical). The book represents an important contribution to criticism on the work of one of the most influential voices in postcolonial literature of the last fifty years.


The Luxury of Nationalist Despair Related Books

Idle Talk, Deadly Talk
Language: en
Pages: 431
Authors: Ana Rodríguez NavasX
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-10-22 - Publisher: University of Virginia Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Chaucer called it "spiritual manslaughter"; Barthes and Benjamin deemed it dangerous linguistic nihilism. But gossip-long derided and dismissed by writers and i
Our Caribbean
Language: en
Pages: 420
Authors: Thomas Glave
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008 - Publisher: Duke University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first book of its kind, Our Caribbean is an anthology of lesbian and gay writing from across the Antilles. The author and activist Thomas Glave has gathered
The Luxury of Nationalist Despair
Language: en
Pages: 236
Authors: A. J. Simoes da Silva
Categories: Law
Type: BOOK - Published: 2000 - Publisher: Rodopi

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book offers a timely critique of the work of the Barbadian novelist George Lamming, examining the ways in which his novels exhibit the "luxury of nationali
Whisper in the Dark
Language: en
Pages: 196
Authors: Joseph Bruchac
Categories: Juvenile Fiction
Type: BOOK - Published: 2005-07-26 - Publisher: Harper Collins

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Every monster can be overcome if you know the right way to go about it. Maddy has always loved scary stories, especially the spooky legends of her Native Americ
Transnational Yearnings
Language: en
Pages: 227
Authors: Jenny Burman
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-01-01 - Publisher: UBC Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The global pathways that connect cities and nations are congested with people, money, and cultural transmissions. Transnational Yearnings maps a new way to look