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Preface

Christiane Fioupou and Colette Selles
p. 6-9

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  • 1 De-Scribing Empire: Post-colonialism and Textuality, Routledge (London, New York, 1994), p. 3.

1At all times the historical, social, and cultural context of peoples and nations has been inscribed in different semiotic systems, in textual and extra-textual forms. ‘Colonialism’, Chris Tiffin and Alan Lawson remark, ‘is an operation of discourse’ and ‘colonial subjects’ are ‘written by that system of representation’.1 In postcolonial countries the text has operated a reversal, as it has come to bear witness to a decolonizing process which has particularly expanded in the former colonies in the second half of the twentieth century. Texts, for instance, have been appropriated to reject subordination and to proclaim emancipation. These strategies aimed at changing colonial, monologic perceptions have also been extended to gender relations, resulting in a revision of positions, and in the reconsideration and assertion of ‘the Other.’ Texts and extra-texts are thus seen to mirror and play a crucial part in the construction of identity. All the essays collected in this volume address issues related to the textual and extra-textual representation of this situation and involve a questioning of, or an opposition or adjustment to, contexts inherited from colonization and subjugation. These contexts offer new perspectives as the result of a trend toward globalization.

2Chantal Zabus explores the interaction between texts and contexts wavering between sexual segregation and (often tentative) acceptance of sexual orientations diverging from established norms. Starting with some notorious nineteenth century male figures associated with European imperialism and the various ways in which their ‘sexual ambivalence’ or ‘enigmatic friendships’ (Aldrich) are approached, rendered or analysed, this article concentrates on West African and Southern African literatures to give insights into the different attitudes to homosexuality in theoretical discourse and fiction.

3Philip Whyte’s essay is devoted to the context of production of West African literature in English, and mostly reconsiders the status of ‘popular’ texts in Ghana. He suggests that, although they have often been frowned upon, these local textual forms truly represent the context of the repudiation of colonization through the interweaving of a traditional, original cultural context and the reappropriation of English. Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah’s Two Thousand Seasons (1974) is a good illustration of the novelist’s desire to break away from Western aesthetics by using the style of a traditional story-teller, which ironically contrasts with the tepid reception of his work in his own country. Similarly, in Osiris Rising (1995), Armah replaces the shared knowledge of English classical works by less locally accessible allusions to traditional Egyptian myths. ‘Armah’s case,’ Philip Whyte contends, ‘should come as a timely reminder of the problematic nature of a literature still aspiring to maintain a vital relationship between an author and the society which produced him.’

4Guillaume Cingal analyses the subtle links between text and context in Zoe Wicomb’s short story ‘You can’t get lost in Cape Town’ (1987). The story, he argues, blurs genre boundaries as it can be read more as part of a ‘composite novel’ - thus belonging to a network of contextual links - than as part of a short-story collection that bears its name. Also, two types of extra-textuality endow the female protagonist’s sense of disorientation with a wider and deeper dimension: the urban geography of Cape Town and the historical reference contained in the mixed metaphor ‘Desire is a Tsafendas tapeworm in my belly that cannot be satisfied’. The apparent textual enigma, he infers, can be solved by looking into extra-textual sources in South African history and thus can be interpreted as a political statement concerning doubts and contradictions in the midst of legalised racial violence.

5Mathilde Rogez also focuses on South African literature, through J. M. Coetzee’s Dusklands (1974), a figurehead of Grens Literatuur. She examines how the context of apartheid is inscribed in the text and in extra-textual elements and devices. Pointing at the significance of the covers of the European and American editions, she demonstrates that the extra-text and paratext bear the mark of wars and conflicts such as the Vietnam war in the 1970s, thus echoing the first part of the novel entitled ‘Vietnam Project’ and suggesting Coetzee’s indirect way of addressing Southern African concerns. She then pays particular attention to the interplay between the two notions of frontier and border which, as she underlines, are at the core of a history of conflicts in South Africa, whether between South Africa and its neighbours or within South African society itself.

6In her essay, Estelle Castro examines the relationship between oral and written forms and investigates the process whereby spoken words are performed, written, and become texts. She shows how contemporary Aboriginal poets, notably Romaine Moreton and Kerry Reed Gilbert, adapt ancient practices to Western ones, and combine orality with the written word, the medium of the colonizer. She argues that with their appropriation of Western forms, Aborigenes, in a decolonizing process, reject subordination, retrieve and celebrate their own culture.

7Xavier Pons offers an analysis of the intricate textual and contextual interplay in Gould’s Book of Fish (2001 by Australian author Richard Flanagan. The article highlights the combination of multiple intertextual and metatextual games in a novel which questions literary modes and conventions: history, fiction, realism, linear narratives are subverted in a fantastic way. Adopting the historical context of a penal settlement in Tasmania, Flanagan’s work is also grounded in the present, underlining the trauma colonization has left on the island. Furthermore, it teems with reflections on essential issues which invest it with a universal dimension reinforced by the circularity of the narrative which aptly emphasizes continuities between past and present.

8Colette Selles analyses several aspects of the interrelations between a classic Australian short story – Henry Lawson’s ‘The Drover’s Wife’, published in 1892 – and some of its sequels which appeared in the twentieth century. She also focuses on the interplay between these textual versions and an extra-textual variant – a painting by Russell Drysdale -– in the context of the construction of Australian identity. The article shows that the different variations address, reconsider, or undermine the tradition. They offer new meanings, subvert artistic modes such as realism, and suggest a redefinition of gender roles with the emergence of feminine voices, attesting to the socio-cultural evolution of Australia over a century.

9Nelly Gillet deals with Tales of the Tikongs by Tongan writer Epeli Hau’ofa. Her analysis shows that texts and context are blended in these short stories. As a creation of the mind drawn from the author’s own cultural and spatial background, the island of Tiko and its fictional inhabitants is representative of the socio-cultural context of Oceania. The stories thus joyfully sketch a specific way of life, and the impact of an evolving international context, namely imperialism on the values of these faraway islands that are no longer remote from the turmoil of the rest of the world.

10Cécile Léonard investigates Salman Rushdie’s change of focus from his homeland to Britain, the United States and the world at large, which provide the context for his recent novels The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) and Fury (2001). Rushdie’s choice of setting testifies to an interest in globalization and in recent developments illustrating how artificiality, immediacy, and acceleration have become universal denominators, similar to the manner in which mobile phones and new technologies, modem extra-textual forms, have virtually replaced the layers of meaning built by centuries of culture. Multiculturalism in New York, somewhat representative of the American Dream and the New World, is shown as a cacophony of voices and confusion, and yet a sense of belonging underlies these novels, suggesting a kind of acceptance of the postmodern world.

11Globalization is also a recent development dealt with by Françoise Kral in her study focussing on Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003). Staging a family's departure from Bengladesh and settling settling in England, the text presents the reader with a close interplay between different contexts. Françoise Krai examines different aspects of the postmodern condition, in particular the difficult position of the subject caught between his original context, his new local context and the global context. She stresses the ambivalence of such a condition, characterized by a tension between diverging poles.

12The works analysed in this collection revolve around the prominent issue of identity. They reveal how postcolonial societies have experienced colonialism and how they have attempted to reclaim an identity that had been erased or forged by the colonizer, an attempt conveyed through textual and extra-textual representation. Furthermore, these texts highlight the changes spawned by globalization, a development which might be interpreted as a form of neo-colonialism that threatens to dissolve identities in the new global context.

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Notes

1 De-Scribing Empire: Post-colonialism and Textuality, Routledge (London, New York, 1994), p. 3.

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References

Bibliographical reference

Christiane Fioupou and Colette Selles, “Preface”Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 28.1 | 2005, 6-9.

Electronic reference

Christiane Fioupou and Colette Selles, “Preface”Commonwealth Essays and Studies [Online], 28.1 | 2005, Online since 01 April 2022, connection on 15 February 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ces/12340; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/120tq

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About the authors

Christiane Fioupou

Université Toulouse-Le Mirail
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Colette Selles

Université Toulouse-Le Mirail
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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be subject to specific use terms.

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