The English book and its marginalia : : colonial/postcolonial literatures after Heart of darkness / / Asako Nakai.

• Superior document: Studies in comparative literature ; Volume 36
• VerfasserIn: Nakai, Asako,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam ;, Atlanta, Georgia : : Rodopi,, [2000]; ©2000
• Year of Publication: 2000
• Language: English
• Series: Text (Rodopi (Firm)) ; Volume 36.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (222 pages)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This book is about books that recount the story of encountering another book. There are various versions of the story told and retold from the heyday of imperialism up to the present day (Homi Bhabha calls it the trope of 'the discovery of the English book'); by considering each of these versions carefully, we may also give an alternative account of twentieth-century 'English literature' as the site of an intercultural discourse. This project is very much inspired by debate on postcolonial theory, namely, the debate between Said and Bhabha. Part I is devoted to the discussion of Conrad, especially of Heart of Darkness, and investigates how the novella has continually been reproduced to the extent that it represents 'the English Book' of colonial/postcolonial literatures. The chapter on Hugh Clifford (Ch.3) is virtually the first intensive critique of his novels, such as Saleh (1908), with a particular focus on their intertextual relations with Conrad's texts. Part II examines how the story of the English Book is repeated and revised in the texts of the following authors: Joyce Cary, Isak Dinesen, V. S. Naipaul, Kaiko Takeshi, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.

Table of Contents

Ch.1 Introduction: The English Book -- Part I Speaking with Conrad -- Ch.2 Towards Heart of Darkness -- Ch.3 A Kurtz in Malaya -- Ch.4 After Heart of Darkness -- Part II Marginalia Deciphered -- Ch.5 Revising Africa: From Daventry to Mister Johnson -- Ch.6 Dinesen's Blank Pages -- Ch.7 The Return of Naipaul -- Ch.8 Luminous Darkness: Reading the Vietnam War, Reading the Japanese Novel -- Ch.9 Ngũgĩ's Unlearning of the English Book.