This anthology offers new modes of response in the theory and practice of postcoloniality. While taking stock of the postcolonial theoretical constructs it stresses the need for viable critical models to match the creative spectrum evidenced in postcolonial societies. It provides a pointer to the various means of the imperial centre to falsify, mythicise and control postcolonial studies as the need to develop local/national models of criticism gains in importance. The book, in its wide ranging sweep, covers different terrains—canonical texts, emerging literatures and native Indian literatures—and subjects some individual texts to closer critical scrutiny. It takes into its fold different genres and explores the possibilities of alternative critical viewpoints.

Table of Contents:
1. Political Returns: Abuses of the Academy –D. Venkat Rao 2. Postmodernism, Discourse and the Colonial Perspective –Shelley Walia 3. Towards a Translation Protocol in the Postcolonial India –P. Shiv Kumar 4. ‘First World’ within the ‘Third World’: The Universalist Fallacy in Criticism –K. Purushotham and N.S. Rahul 5. On the Political Semiotics of Othello’s Otherness: Rallying Round the Postcolonial Aesthetics –Prasenjit Maiti 6. Jane Eyre and Jean Rhys: ‘Gendering the Subaltern’ –Rama Kundu 7. R. Parthasarathy and Poetry as Postcolonial Discourse –P. Mallikarjuna Rao 8. Bhabani Bhattacharya’s A Dream in Hawaii: A Study in Postcolonial Spirituality –D. Ramakrishna 9. Past and Present in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day –Syed Mujeebuddin 10. The Reverse Patterns of Journey in Anita Desai’s Cry, the Peacock and Where Shall We Go This Summer? –Sanjay Kumar 11. Moving the ‘Small’ to the Centre: The God of Small Things: A Study in Style –T. Vinoda 12. Urban Bias as Postcolonial Distortion: A Note on Badal Sircar’s Third Theatre –E. Renuka and Shampa Bhattacharjee 13. Douloti as a National Allegory –Jaidev 14. Recovery of the Subordinate Self: Postcolonial Problematics in Devil on the Cross, Jagua Nana and Sula –Ashok K. Mohapatra 15. The ‘Psychic Arena’ in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power—A Study –R. Saraswati 16. Affirmation of Self in Ngugi’s The River Between –Mohamed Osman Gheleway 17. Nationalism in Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners –P. Mallikarjuna Rao and M. Prabhakar 18. The Context of Regionalism in Margaret Laurence’s Manawaka Fiction –K. Damodar Rao and M. Surendra Kumar 19. The Polemics of Postcolonial Writing: Marlatt’s Ana Historic and Nourbese’s ‘Discourse on the Logic of Language’