• ISBN13: 9788126919383
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: Atlantic
• Publication Date: August 20, 2014
• Pages: 496
• Original Price: INR 1195.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 540 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): General

As the title Writing Difference: Nationalism, Identity and Literature suggests, the dominant theme of the book is nation and its inevitable concomitants, namely identity and difference. These problematics have been studied both in terms of theory and practice. So far as practice is concerned, it has always been socially and culturally specific. Nation as a phenomenon cuts across all boundaries—social, cultural, political and geographical—all over the world. Identity is the chief question that inheres in nation and nationalism as a problematic, both in its colonial and postcolonial passages. In this connection, difference and heterogeneity are here centrestaged for its determination, and these can best be represented in literature. So emphasis has been laid on literary texts written in English based on different perceptions of the writers concerned. The contributors have selected their texts for analyses accordingly, articulating theoretically the underlying narratives of the nations across the world. The spectrum is wide enough to embrace nations and cultures like Asian, Irish, Jewish, Australian, American and European. Some texts are known, while some others are recent ones. But all of them provide new critical dimensions for understanding the emerging problems related to the postcolonial period of decolonization when the national situation appears to be still bedevilled by the legacies of colonialism. The other questions raised are those of identities of the diasporas, and ethnic communities within the postcolonial nations. Renewed critical and theoretical light has been shed on all these questions in terms of twenty-five well-written and well-referenced critical articles. The book is expected to be a good textual reading for all interested in the subject.

Girindra Narayan Ray is Professor at the Department of English, North Bengal University, West Bengal. His areas of interest are Theory, Marxist studies, Postcolonial studies, Gender studies, and Indian English Literature. He has published widely on these areas. He has co-edited The Postcolonial Woman Question: Readings in Indian Women Novelists in English (Books Way, 2010). Jaydip Sarkar is Assistant Professor of English at University B.T. & Evening College, North Bengal University. He has co-edited, with Professor G.N. Ray, The Postcolonial Woman Question: Readings in Indian Women Novelists in English. He has published many articles on Indian English Writing, as well as British and American Literature. His forthcoming publications are Understanding Satire and Unmasking Power: Subjectivity and Resistance in Indian Drama in English. Anindya Bhattacharya is Assistant Professor of English at University B.T. & Evening College, North Bengal University. His publications include Turn of the Century Indian Writing in English: Emergent Themes and Subjectivities 1990-2010 (Imprint, 2012); and Unmasking Power: Subjectivity and Resistance in Indian Drama in English (forthcoming). He has published a number of articles on Indian Writing in English, Trauma studies, and Feminist Publishing in India.

• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• 1. Introduction: Nation, Nationalism, Identity and Difference–Girindra Narayan Ray
• THEORY IN CONTEXT
• 2. Ontopology of Nationalism, Derrida’s Quasi-transcendental A Priories and the Quest for Postcolonial/National Coming Community–Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha
• TEXTS: ASIAN/SOUTH ASIAN
• 3. Borders and Boundaries: Postcolonial Conflicts in South Asia–Rohit K. Dasgupta
• 4. Opium Shapes History: Sea of Poppies and the Nations in Jeopardy–Shirsendu Mondal
• 5. Tagore’s Critique of Nationalism: Reading Four Chapters–Arunima Ray
• 6. The Con-text of Diasporic Muslim Identity/ies: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane–Jaydip Sarkar
• 7. From Nationalist Iconography to Postnational Mythographies: Sindhiness in Meira Chand’s House of the Sun–Anindya Bhattacharya
• 8. Conflicts of Identity in New Tibetan Literature in English–Shelly Bhoil
• 9. Hong Kong Literature: Resisting an Imposed National Identity–Catherine Wong
• AFRICAN/AFRICAN DIASPORA
• 10. ‘The Hollow Shell of Nationality’: Competing Nationalisms and the Emergence of Dictatorship in David Caute’s At Fever Pitch–Matthew J. Whittle
• 11. Reading African Children’s Literature: Nationalist Discourse in Fatima Mernissi’s Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood–Sihem Arfaoui Abidi
• 12. Dancing into the Guts: Reclaiming Sylvia in Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance–Ashley C. Bourgeois
• 13. Racial Funambulism, Retribution, and the Erection of an-Other Order: Seminal Black Nationalist Discourse in Iceberg Slim’s Trick Baby–Matthew O. Wilsey-Cleveland
• 14. Examining Race, Identity and Language in Jean Rhys’s Voyage in the Dark–Roger Blanton
• AUSTRALIAN
• 15. Diasporas on the Move: Lines of Flight in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good–Carol L. Yang
• IRISH/JEWISH
• 16. Generating and Scripting the National: A Study of Irish Revivalist and Postcolonial Contexts–Kaustav Chakraborty
• 17. “A Furtive Lorry”: Colonial Things in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September–Matthew Nathan Hannah
• 18. Patrick McCabe/Braden’s Paratexts in Breakfast on Pluto–Elizabeth R. Stribling
• 19. When Theory Proves Insufficient: Between Language and Memorialization, Or (How) Do Second-Generation Survivors Address the Jewish Genocide?–Bela Gligorova
• 20. Patriots in fremden Ländern: 1939-45 German Émigré Littérateurs–Pinaki Roy
• EUROPEAN/AMERICAN
• 21. Metafiction After Trauma: Paul Auster and the Idea of America–Rafael Ruiz Pleguezuelos
• 22. “A Thousand Kaleidoscopic Possibilities”: Jonathan Safran Foer’s Minor Nationalism–Paul Ardoin
• 23. Nationalism, Literature and the Politics of the Elites in Portugal from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present–Maria de Fátima Amante
• 24. Being “In the Club”: Themes of Nation, Media, and Literary Tradition in Ian McEwan’s Saturday–Terri R. Baker
• 25. Nationalist Black Metal, Black Metal Nation–Owen Coggins
• List of Contributors