1. Definition Of Postcolonial Literature
Colonialism:
Ellecke Bohemer, in her book Colonial and Postcolonial Literature defines colonialism as " settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands" (p. 2) Note the emphasis on the settlement of land, the economic relationship is at the heart of colonialism, and the unequal relations of power which colonialism constructs.
Imperialism and the Other:
The Dictionary of Human Geography defines imperialism as "The creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The maintenance of this unequal relationship wholly depends on the subordination of an "other" group or peoples, from which resources can be taken and land can be exploited.
Other, then, describes the process of justifying the domination of individuals or groups in the periphery to facilitate subordination. The creation of the other is done by highlighting their weakness, thus extenuating the moral responsibility of the stronger self to educate, convert, or civilize depending on the identity of the other. Indeed, as defined by Martin Jones et al., othering is "A term, advocated by Edward Said, which refers to the act of emphasizing the perceived weaknesses of marginalized groups as a way of stressing the alleged strength of those in positions of power." Othering can be done with any racial, ethnic, religious, or geographically-defined category of people.
Postcolonial Literature:
“Postcolonial literatures” are also often variously termed as “new literatures”, “commonwealth literatures” or “world literatures”, and as these names indicate, they focus on the recent status of their history and the global spread of imperialism in its different forms. It incorporates the study of the writers and their literary works from the predominantly European settler communities, as well as writers belonging to those countries which were in the process of gaining their independence from British Rule, such as those from the African, Caribbean and South Asian nations. The origins of this branch of literature are plural and borrow from different disciplines which gave it an interdisciplinary nature and a diverse study according to its different societies, cultures, and contexts.
Anglophone Postcolonial Literature:
The status quo of the English language as the global one, being the language of the Empire, implies that the English language and its literature became as a site of contest for the colonized, a means for them to challenge the cultural and ideological structures of the Empire. This is evident in the postcolonial writings of the mid twentieth century onwards, with the new assessments of the Empire’s legacies. Postcolonial writers from Indian, Caribbean, and African descent such as Mulk Raj Anand and Arundhati Roy, of Wilson Harris and Pauline Melville, of Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo, often use a hybridized forms and structures of English as a means to convey their voices and cultures to the global readership and also to deconstruct the English language and its usage by infusing the markers of their native culture and language.
Johnston, R.J., et al. The Dictionary of Human Geography. 4th Ed. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2000. 375.