Commonwealth Literature Today Stands For Literature(S) In English Written In The Commonwealth Countries Outside The Anglo-American Tradition. What Is Common Between The Diverse Members Of The Commonwealth In Spite Of Their Different Calendars Of Independence And Ethnological, Cultural, Political As Also Topographical Set-Ups Is That All These Countries Shared The Common Colonial Experience. So, From India To Nigeria, Canada To Kenya, Australia To Pakistan We Can Discern The Varying Patterns Of A Common Human Experience And Emergence Of Cultural Nationalism Leading To An Emphasis On Their Distinctiveness In Literary Heritage And Assertion Of Cultural Identity. Commonwealth Literature Thus Presents A Rich Variety Of Aesthetic And Cultural Experience.The Essays Collected In This Volume Spanning Different Countries And Periods Try To Offer A Taste Of This Interesting Variety. The Range Covered Here Stretches From West African Drama To South African Fiction, Australian And Caribbean Literature To That Of Indian Diaspora And South Asian Poetry Of The Saarc Countries. Discussions On Indian Literature Cover The Varied Areas From Devotional Mysticism To Realistic Social Satire, Myth-Oriented Novel To Feminism, Dialogism And Reassessment Of Postcolonial Theories.The Authors Focused In This Discussion Promises A Colourful Spectrum; They Include Wole Soyinka, Ahmed Essop, Salman Rushdie, David Malouf, Wilson Harris, Patrick White, Rohinton Mistry, G.V. Desani, Aurobindo, Manohar Magonkar, R.K. Narayan, Gurcharan Das, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamala Das, K.V. Venkataramani, Margaret Craven, Along With A Host Of Saarc Poets.The Volume Will Be Useful For The Students And Scholars Of Commonwealth Literature, And Will Also Prove Interesting To The Common Reader.

Women and resistance in Iran; cowboy songs; fetal alcohol syndrome; the conquest of Everest; women settlers in Natal. What do these topics have in common? The study of what used to be called Commonwealth literature, or the new literatures, has by now come to be known as postcolonial study. This collection of essays investigates the status of postcolonial studies today. The contributors come from three generations: the pioneers who introduced study of the “new” literatures into university English departments, the next generation who refined and developed many of the theoretical positions embodied in postcolonial study, and the next, much younger, generation, who use the established practices of the discipline to investigate the application of this theory in a wide range of cultural contexts. Although the authors write from such different starting points, a surprisingly similar set of images, phrases and topics of concern emerge in their essays. They return constantly to issues of difference and similarity, the re-examination of categories that often appear to be too rigidly defined in current postcolonial practices, and to concepts of sharing: experience, ideas of home, and even the use of land. Postcolonizing the Commonwealth: Studies in Literature and Culture offers an intriguing analysis of the state of postcolonial criticism today and of the application of postcolonial methods to a variety of texts and historical events. It is an invaluable contribution to the current debate in both literary and cultural studies.