Colonialism in Literature?

[Ryduce]

I'm looking for some literature discussing the impacts of colonialism.

At the moment,I can only think of a few examples of literature in which colonialism is a prevalent theme.Conrad's Heart of Darkness depicted some of the horrors of colonialism,and Rushdie's The Satanic Verses described the plight of post-colonial immigrants in England.

I was hoping that the esteemed members here could provide some other works that discuss this in detail.

[Abraxas]

Are you looking for post-colonial literature or just literature that deals with colonialism? In the first category, I can think of Rushdie, yes, but also Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things), Naipaul (wonderful A house for Mr Biswas, for instance), Jean Rhys, Derek Walcott etc...

As for books that deal with colonialism...I suppose you could have a look at Kipling... Passage to India by Forster...and there's JG Farrell, who wrote about the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in the Siege of Krishnapur (great novel!!)...
and lots of others, but their names are just not coming back to me just now!

[Virgil]

Abraxas pointed out the works that come to mind for me. Foster's A Passage to India and Kipling's Kim. You might also check out other novels by Conrad where colonialism is involved in a sub text sort of way. I'm thinking of Lord Jim and perhaps even Victory. But you know even novels like Great Expectations touch on colonialism in some fashion.

[lshomie]

There's Burmese Days, by G. Orwell...
Great account of British rule in what used to be Burma, the corruption, the bigotry...
And it's based on Orwell's own experience as a policeman there.
Great read. :)

EDIT: another book I've just thought of: La Question, by H. Alleg...
It's the account of torture in French Algeria during the Algerian war of independence, in the late fifties, early 1960's. This book has long been banned from publishing in France.

[Etienne]

Hmm Verne's Famille-sans-nom (Family-Without-Name I guess).

[Virgil]

EDIT: another book I've just thought of: La Question, by H. Alleg...
It's the account of torture in French Algeria during the Algerian war of independence, in the late fifties, early 1960's. This book has long been banned from publishing in France.

France has banned books?

[lshomie]

The ban on this book was only removed a few years ago.
Torture performed by the French Army during the 'Troubles' has been a taboo subject for all these years...
"Les Fleurs du Mal" underwent a trial too on publication, didn't they?

[Ryduce]

It doesn't really matter to me if it's post-colonialism or colonialism in general.As long as it's explicit in the work as opposed to just being mentioned for a page.I'm really just interested in the subject out of intellectual curiosity,it's not really for school or anything.

I had forgot all about Rudyard Kipling,and I honestly never read any of his work.I will look into both him and Foster.

The Algerian book seems very interesting to me,however I was looking for more of a fictional account.That book seems a little heavy for my taste at the moment.

[Abraxas]

"Les Fleurs du Mal" underwent a trial too on publication, didn't they?

Yep, they did censure Les Fleurs du Mal, and parts of it ("Lesbos", "A celle qui était trop gaie"...) were banned for quite a while, I think...Madame Bovary was put on trial as well.

[JBI]

Derek Walcott has strong post-colonial themes. Authors like Joseph Conrad have plenty of colonial themes (especially Heart of Darkness).

[mortalterror]

I've always thought that the critical interpretation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness was a little heavy handed when it talked about Colonialism. It's there, to be sure, but the book is much more a study of madness and disillusionment. I've read HOD, Lord Jim, a book of his short stories, and the beginning of Nostromo. Colonialism is usually used as a setting, but then most of his stories happen on boats and we don't say that his major theme is the love of sailing do we?

[aeroport]

The Algerian book seems very interesting to me,however I was looking for more of a fictional account.That book seems a little heavy for my taste at the moment.

Try the short story "L'Hote" ("The Guest") by Camus. It concerns a schoolteacher who runs a school for poor Arab children. A soldier brings an Arab prisoner to him, and delivers an order to take him to a nearby prison for execution. The main concern is the teacher's decision between administering French justice (by facilitating the execution) and leaving it to the native inhabitants to sort it out.

From what I understand, Camus was rather critical of this situation, so you might be able to find other works by him dealing with this issue.

Additionally, Melville is rather critical of the colonial impulse in Typee, in which he frequently reverses the opposition of "savagery" and "civilization" while observing the interaction between the islanders and the British and French "occupiers".

[Scheherazade]

"Shooting an Elephant" by Orwell, though very short, is an interesting read, too.

[curlyqlink]

Strangely, several of H.G. Wells' novels are about colonialism. War of the Worlds is about being colonized... the boot on the other foot, so to speak. The Island of Dr. Moreau is about "improving" the locals. The First Men in the Moon is about the encounter with another culture and how it all goes wrong, despite the best of intentions. A common thread is a skeptical look at the wonders of bringing "advanced" civilization to the natives.

Being familiar with H.G. Wells only through dumb movie adaptations, it came as a real treat to read the actual novels. Wells is a fine writer.

[KyleBennett]

Wole Soyinka, J.M Coetzee, Chinua Achebe are all authors who deal with post-colonialism at first hand as they are all african novelists. Things fall Apart- by Achebe is a striking story about the influence of the west upon africa. Also try as aforementioned, Jean Rhys'- The Day they burnt the books. a shorter story that deals with colonialism.

[Virgil]

I've always thought that the critical interpretation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness was a little heavy handed when it talked about Colonialism. It's there, to be sure, but the book is much more a study of madness and disillusionment. I've read HOD, Lord Jim, a book of his short stories, and the beginning of Nostromo. Colonialism is usually used as a setting, but then most of his stories happen on boats and we don't say that his major theme is the love of sailing do we?

Good point. As someone who has read a lot of Conrad, I would generally agree, but the colonialism is there nonetheless and it does intersect with his themes of human nature. The disillusionment is based on human nature supported by secondary themes, of which colonialism is sometimes one.

[Etienne]

Yep, they did censure Les Fleurs du Mal, and parts of it ("Lesbos", "A celle qui était trop gaie"...) were banned for quite a while, I think...Madame Bovary was put on trial as well.

It was pretty much everywhere, Ulysses was banned from England and USA for a long time, it was published first in France.

[JBI]

It was pretty much everywhere, Ulysses was banned from England and USA for a long time, it was published first in France.

It was banned in the U.S. after the release of the Firework Episode (what is it, Sirens?) it was serialized first.

[barbara0207]

"Heat and Dust" by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a comparatively short novel about the British rule in India in the 1920s. In the 1970s, a British girl travels to India to learn about the roots of her family.

[curlyqlink]

I find colonialism pretty up front in Conrad. Heart of Darkness:

We pounded along, stopped, landed solders; went on, landed custom-house clerks to levy toll in what looked like a God-forsaken wilderness, with a tin shed and a flagpole lost in it; landed more soldiers...

The recurring image is of the futility of it all, of corrosive pointlessness. No wonder Kurtz has gone mad! The image of the French gunship "incomprehensible, firing into a continent... there was a touch of insanity in the proceeding" always seemed to me central to The Heart of Darkness. The disillusionment and madness has its source here.

[nebish]

The finest commentators on Colonialism and Post-Colonialism, I believe, are Edward Said ("Culture and Imperialism") and Frantz Fanon ("The Wretched of the Earth").
A vivid and alarming commentary on European colonial depredations in Africa is "Exterminate All the Brutes" by Sven Lindqvist.
"Terra Nostra" by Carlos Fuentes and "Memory of Fire" are excellent literary works that consider Spanish and Yanqui colonialism.

[kratsayra]

Someone has already mentioned Chinua Achebe. Another good and well known author from Africa addressing these themes is Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Colonialism is very present in Weep Not, Child because it is set during the colonial era. But any of his other books would work pretty well too.

The other thing that comes to mind that is very clearly and consistently about colonialism is Sembene Ousmane's God's Bits of Wood. It was written in the 60s but is set a few decades earlier - it is a fictionalization of the historical strike that occurred on the Dakar-Niger railway. It's excellent, and very Marxist, if you are into that.

I could go on and on - I work on African literature and it's of course a prevalent and consistent theme in African literature. I can't speak much for literature from the rest of the world, though.