39 - “Postcolonial” African and Caribbean literature

Summary

Postcolonial literature is usually produced by such younger writers as Caryl Phillips in England and Calixthe Beyala in France, who are part of minority diasporas in what were colonizing nations; they are especially, but not exclusively, those born and raised after independence. This literature is a result of the massive migrations of recent decades and the growing global economic market in which education and jobs are available to those from former colonies. One explanation of these diasporas might be “We are here because you were there” (Frankenberg and Mani 1993: 293). The “postcolonials” have replaced the “colonials” as the persons moving from one culture to another. The large-scale movement of people from their countries of origin is a salient feature of the contemporary world.

Postcolonial literature is distinct from theories of post colonialism and post-colonial studies. While the term “postcolonial” is used historically to mean literature written after the era of colonialism, postcolonial cultural studies critically analyzes the continuing relationship of colonial powers to those they had colonized and often treats nationalist governments and their nativist culture as reactionary or neocolonial. Postcolonial studies are anticolonial; most forms of dominance are viewed as imperial and those dominated as colonized victims. Postcolonial analysis tends to be antagonistic to literary art; elite culture is to be deconstructed to reveal its hidden assumptions, including complicity with the colonizers. The colonizers’ culture is to be appropriated to resist, to answer back.