Already prominent author Jean Rhys published this seminal work in 1966 after decades of shielding herself from the public eye. It subsequently became her most famous novel, integrating itself over the following decades into the curricula of many universities. Exploring Creole identity and told in multiple voices, it reflects Rhys’ childhood growing up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. It’s also thought to be a post-modern response to “Jane Eyre”– especially the reconstruction of Eyre’s character Bertha, the “lunatic Creole” in Rochester’s attic, via Rhys’s protagonist Antoinette and her torturous marriage to Rochester. It’s full of desperation, sexuality, and cultural alienation.
In 1988, acclaimed British-Indian author Rushdie published this novel which featured multiple plots of magical realism. One of these plots involved a retelling of the Prophet Muhammad. What followed outside the text was beyond anyone’s imagination, as Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a “fatwa” calling for the death of the author. Rushdie’s own story of fear and hiding (and the murders of some of the book’s international publishers) can be read in his amazing memoir, “Joseph Anton.” But first read “The Satanic Verses.” It’s rich, fantastical, adventurous, shocking, sprawling and wonderful, depicting the two-sidedness of the British-Indian identity.
This book is a primary read to discover the multiple, destructive facets of neo-colonialism. It explores independence and the imprint it leaves on the identity of the indigenous population. Kincaid’s Antigua is, of course, beautiful, sandy-beached, full of wonderful resorts and neon drinks with tiny umbrellas –for foreign tourists. Using the second person “accusatory” voice, she talks to the reader, the blinded tourist, the ancestors of colonizers and thieves, about their experiences having the time of their lives on a tropical paradise, carved out for their pleasure with the blood and dignity of ancestors and current citizens. Her brilliance lies in how she finds a balance between finger-pointing and absolution. “You see yourself taking a walk on that beach…you see yourself eating some delicious, locally grown food…you see yourself…you see yourself…” (neiu.edu).
Shot through with slapstick situations and zany cultural misunderstandings, this 1956 short novel by Trinidadian novelist Sam Selvon is a story of isolation and middle-ness between two countries. He writes about people tempted to move to London with thousands of other immigrants when the British Nationality Act allowed British citizenship for natives of its overseas colonies (called also the “Windrush Generation”). It follows the stories of multiple West Indian characters kicking around London, trying to make a buck, fighting off depression and poverty and realizing with certainty that the system was going to shatter their dreams of advancement. Weaving around the central character of Moses Aloetta, Selvon speaks the language of the Beat generation — jazzy and fast-paced –ultimately painting his characters as running in place.
South African writer Coetzee won the Booker Prize in 1999 for this novel about an anguished English professor living in the post-apartheid landscape. David Lurie suffers through two divorces, a mediocre position at a Cape Town university, and he is forced resign after he pretty much sexually assaults one of his students. The second part of the novel chronicles a rather violent situation that happens to his daughter, who Lurie moves in with on her rural farm. Displacement is the main theme here. The misery that Lurie endures could perhaps be considered part of the lasting stain of colonization.
A novel of Greek tragedy proportions, and perhaps the No. 1 must-read on this list, this classic by Nigerian author-genius Chinua Achebe was his response to Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness.” It’s an anti-neo-colonizationist’s call for fellow writers of African birth to write outside the white colonizers’ eyes. He creates the character Okonkwo, a passionate and flawed protagonist who tries to rule his village despite obstacles from within and without, including the arrival of white Christian missionaries who charm the villagers. It’s a sad and powerful classic.
A stunning, angry post-colonial melodrama set in the empty expanse of the Southern Rhodesian (current-day Zimbabwe) countryside, this book by Nobel-winner Doris Lessing was popular and controversial upon its 1950 release. Mary Turner is the violently unhappy wife of a British-Rhodesian farmer who enters into a psycho-sexual relationship with black servant, Moses. Her bitterness, racism, and desperation are part of a larger picture of relations between whites and the indigenous population at the time. Lessing’s prose is so sharp, it nearly leaps out of the page at you, and Mary’s plummet into insanity (it’s a murder mystery to boot) is quite a literary experience.
Indian author Roy’s debut novel won the 1998 Booker Prize for Fiction. Fraternal twins Rahel and Estha experience the conflict of “double consciousness,” their return to their childhood town of Ayemenem bringing to the surface many concerning situations regarding their family’s relationships. India’s caste system and its subjugating effects on marriage, the decline of a great family’s name, the haunting effects of childhood — all are chronicled in a narrative that jumps from 1993 when the twins are 31 years old, back to 1968, when they are 7. The themes of colonization and the search for a true meaning of “home” are prevalent here.
In this memoir of Ondaatje’s family in Sri Lanka (known as Ceylon, a former British colony), Ondaatje imagines his family in their homeland, a place he can’t quite put his finger on. So he resorts to a Rushie-like magical realism to fill in the gaps of his own history. Writing about the family’s hijinks, loves and drunken nights (especially his father Mervyn’s misbehaviors) Ondaatje draws attention to a result of post-colonialism — unable to be exactly in touch with a lineage that stretches across the world. This book and other Ondaatje works (“The English Patient,” “In the Skin of the Lion,”) also could be categorized as Canadian literature, since it is the country of his adulthood.
The story of the bloody Biafran War is told through five characters in this extraordinary fictional work by Adichie, who won the Orange Prize for Fiction, given to women who write full-length novels. The war was fought by ethnic groups in the 60s over the creation of an independent Igbo state. The book explores the effects of British imperialism in a land of multiple ethnic groups, carving up the land, and then leaving it to deal with the aftermath. The characters guide us into the dark heart of these hardships. It has been made into a film starring Chiwetel Ejifor and Thandie Newton.
